So today was TOGAF exam day. In just five days I have gone from not knowing much about TOGAF to being TOGAF 9 certified.

I had to book my test on the appalling Prometric website which was a test in itself, there is no map of the test centres, links don’t work and there are no confirmation emails.

The first exam is the foundation exam and you have 60 minutes to answer 40 multiple choice questions and you need to get 55% to pass. It is a closed book exam and really tests detailed knowledge of TOGAF. The second exam is the practitioner exam and here you have 90 minutes to do 8 scenario multiple choice questions, but this time you have access to a PDF version of the TOGAF manual. You get 5 points for the right answer, 3 for the second best, 1 for the third best and 0 points for the distracter answer. You need a 60% mark to pass.

The foundation exam I completed in about 30 minutes and the practitioner exam in about 60 minutes and I got 36/40 in the first exam and 36/40 in the second exam so an overall score of 90%

My top tips for passing the TOGAF exam (in order of importance):

• Attend a classroom course (distance study will bore you to death)
• Read the study guides (these were invaluable to me)
• Check your knowledge with the “test yourself questions” at the end of each chapter in the study guide. It’s a great way to find gaps in your knowledge
• Make sure you know the phases and key steps in each phase of the ADM like the back of your hand
• Get a feel for the structure of the TOGAF manual so you can quickly find the sections you need
• Do some timed practice tests
• Read the scenario exam questions and try and write your own answers to get inside the head of the examiner

Phew the final day of training and my brain has been pushed to the limit this week, we have condensed a 1,000 page manual into a four day course.

It was quite a relaxed day today, closing off loose ends and finishing off the course.

We started the day looking at requirements management, which TOGAF says should be integrated throughout all the phases. If you have ever done any project management this is pretty straight forward. We looked at security which in TOGAF 9 is a bolt on as the materials were written in 2009. Things have moved on a lot and for most people security is integral and integrated into architecture.

Finally we look at SOA and how that relates to TOGAF. SOA maps  very well to TOGAF assuming that you add services as additional types of building blocks. This was a very interesting and frustrating part of the course as it was good to get an overview but it left me wanting to know a lot more.

After lunch we did some scenario based questions and a quick course summary and we were all finished by 2pm. I met some really cool people this week, and I learned a lot from them so a big virtual thanks to everyone on my course this week.

Tomorrow is the exam…

… my plan of attack is to speed read the study guide before bed tonight and then do lots of practice questions in the morning.

So enterprise architecture and TOGAF are started to make sense now and things are really falling into place. That being said I am very glad I opted for classroom based study and not distance learning as that would be have been almost impossible!

We finished off the phases of the ADM today:

Phase B: Business Architecture. This extends the high level architecture that was developed in the phase A. This phase is centred around business process modelling that forms the basis for the later phases. You need to model the baseline and target architectures and perform a gap analysis. Like any gated process the final step is to get formal stakeholder review.

Phase C: Information architecture and phase D: technology architecture are almost the same as phase B but instead of focusing on business architecture you focus on data, application and technology architecture.

Phase E: Opportunities and solutions is very much about finalising your architecture plans and passing them over to the project/ implementation team.

Phase F: Migration planning is all about creating the transition architectures, creating projects and work packages from the program of work.

Phase G: Governance and implementation is governing and watching over the project teams as they build from the plans you have developed.

Phase H: Architectural change management is monitoring changes in the business, technology and architecture and then implementing changes. ITIL is a good lead for this phase.

We also did some case studies and some exam technique which was very useful. We did some practice multiple choice questions and also some exercises for the scenario based questions. The exercise was to read a scenario question and then write four answers to get inside the mind of the examiner, like the exam we had to write the perfect TOGAF answer, something that was almost right, something that was off base and then one answer that was totally wrong.

I am off to do some more practice questions now ready for my exam on Friday!

I had recovered slightly from the bombardment from yesterday and some of the TOGAF concepts were starting to make sense and fall into place in my head.

Today was more engaging we covered a lot of ground again but it was more pragmatic then yesterday.

We started with architectural governance which is something that I am well versed in these days. TOGAF positions architectural governance itself sitting across corporate, technology and IT governance. It also gives some good checklists and ideas on how to run a governance function.

We then covered risk management and compliance which again seemed closely related to the risk management skills that I have learned in project management (Prince2 and APMP).

We then covered the first two stages of the architectural development model (ADM) which is the main core of TOGAF. The preliminary phase defines the enterprise, identifies key business drivers, key stakeholders, defines the business requirements for the architecture work and defines the architecture principles. As with any stage in the ADM there are inputs, action and then outputs. The main output of this stage is the request for architectural work.

We then moved onto phase A – the architectural vision. This sets the high level picture, validates the findings from the preliminary phase and formalises the requirements and project plan. The main outputs from this stage are:

• Approved statement of work
• Refined statements of business goals and drivers
• Architectural principles
• Tailored architectural framework (remember you need to tailor TOGAF)
• Architectural vision

Finally at the end of the day just before my brain gave up we covered phase B – business architecture. The objective of this stage is to refine the architecture vision from phase A focusing on the business architecture. Using business process modelling tools you need to map the baseline business architecture. The outputs from this stage are:

• Refined architecture vision
• Draft architecture document
• Draft architecture requirements
• Business architecture components of an architecture roadmap
• Target baseline architecture version 1

More to come tomorrow.

As I have a week off from my MBA I thought that I would push my brain to it limits by taking some professional courses instead of relaxing.
Today was the first day of my TOGAF 9 certification training with Enterprise Architects.

To be honest it was quite a boring day full of introductions to concepts, definitions and architecture models. Again it was drilled into us that enterprise architecture is not an IT process rather a business process. Enterprise architecture is the process of optimising, mapping and integrating business processes and TOGAF gives you a framework and tools to do that.

One thing that I really liked was that TOGAF has a standardised vocabulary so that all EA know what each other are talking about. A lot of EA seems to have a lot in common with project management; stakeholder analysis, requirements, benefits realisation, governance frameworks etc. Some people argue that 60% of EA is portfolio management.

Hopefully I will have something more positive to report tomorrow!