Key takeaways
- Compliance relies on Project Architectures and a formal review defined by governance.
- Reviews catch errors early and can shorten projects.
- Review at initiation, initial design, major changes, and ad hoc.
- Compliant = gaps allowed without additions; Conformant = everything implemented with additions; Non-conformant = a specified feature implemented wrongly.
- A dispensation is temporary, bounded, and monitored; repeated ones may justify evolving the standard.
Why check compliance
Two complementary processes contribute. The architecture function prepares Project Architectures, that is, project-specific views of the Enterprise Architecture for each major project, through Phases A to F. The enterprise and IT governance functions, for their part, define a formal compliance review applied to all projects. Reviews serve to:
- catch errors in the project architecture early;
- apply best practices to architecture work;
- give an overview of compliance with mandated standards;
- spot standards that should themselves evolve;
- identify application-specific services that could join the enterprise infrastructure;
- inform management of the project’s readiness status;
- report significant architectural gaps to suppliers.
When to review
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TOGAF suggests reviews at project initiation, at initial design, at each major design change, and ad hoc when needed. A late review, at closure alone, would no longer allow cheap corrections. Done well, these reviews can shorten overall project time and let the business benefit from the architecture sooner.
In Phase G, Implementation Governance, reviews produce Compliance Assessments; deviations lead to realignment, a dispensation, or Change Requests.
Six conformance levels
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To qualify an implementation against a specification, ask three questions: is everything specified implemented? Are there additions outside the specification? Is any specified feature implemented against the specification?
- Irrelevant: no features in common with the specification.
- Consistent: common features follow the specification, but some specified ones are missing and others are added outside it.
- Compliant: some specified features are missing, but everything implemented is covered by and follows the specification.
- Conformant: the whole specification is implemented accordingly, with additions outside it.
- Fully conformant: exact match, nothing missing and nothing added.
- Non-conformant: at least one specified feature is implemented contrary to the specification.
When compliance is not achieved
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If a Compliance Assessment is rejected, the area concerned (design, operational, service level, or technology) can either be realigned with the requirements or be the subject of a dispensation request.
A dispensation is granted for a given period and a defined set of services and operational criteria; it is monitored and is not permanent. The Architecture Board grants it consistently with the technology strategy. Repeated requests about the same standard are a signal: the standard itself may deserve an update.
TERMS TO KNOW
The terms, in context.
- Architecture Compliance review
- A formal review assessing a project’s compliance with the Enterprise Architecture.
- Project Architecture
- A project-specific view of the Enterprise Architecture showing its impact.
- Compliant
- Level where everything implemented follows the specification, without covering it fully.
- Conformant
- Level where the whole specification is implemented, with additions outside it.
- Non-conformant
- Level where a specified feature is implemented contrary to the specification.
- Dispensation
- An authorized deviation, limited in time and scope, and monitored by governance.