TOGAF - History and Current Status

Svyatoslav Kotusev explains where The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) came from, why TOGAF “succeeded” despite being inadequate and what happens with TOGAF now. 

He also debunks three other popular misconceptions around enterprise architecture:

1) That enterprise architecture originated only in the late 1980s

2) That current EA frameworks descend from the Zachman Framework

3) That architecture initially was purely technical and only recently expanded into the realm of business

The evolution of enterprise architecture planning, started in the early 1960s with methodologies like IBM's Business Systems Planning (BSP), which laid foundations for current-state, future-state, and action planning. 

Numerous consulting firms developed similar approaches, including Arthur Andersen (now Accenture), Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), and Deloitte & Touche (now Deloitte), but these methods were often laborious, produced incomprehensible deliverables, and were rarely implemented successfully.

TOGAF, derived from the US Department of Defense's TAFIM, emerged in the early 1990s as the first to explicitly use the term "enterprise architecture". Its widespread popularity is attributed to effective marketing by The Open Group, positioning it as an "open" standard with a certification model, rather than its practical utility. 

In practice, TOGAF is widely declared as used but rarely followed as prescribed, having become increasingly vague and contradictory over time. It functions primarily as a symbolic brand, providing little practical guidance but generating significant revenue for The Open Group, trainers, and salespeople through certifications and branding, rather than tangible value or best practices for practitioners.