What fundamental business architecture concepts should be considered when creating an Architecture Vision?

The Architecture Vision (Phase A) establishes a high-level view of the target architecture to address business goals and stakeholder concerns. To create this vision, it is essential to understand the fundamental structure and strategic context of the business. Business capabilities define what the business does, value streams describe how it delivers value to stakeholders, and organization maps show who is involved. These three concepts provide the strategic, high-level business context necessary to scope the architecture effort and create a compelling vision that aligns with business strategy, making them the most appropriate considerations for this initial ADM phase.

A. Business use-cases, event diagrams, and class models are detailed artifacts typically developed in later ADM phases (Phase B and C) to describe specific behaviors and data structures, not the high-level strategic vision.
C. Business data models, roles, and detailed business processes are granular components of a full Business Architecture (Phase B) and Data Architecture (Phase C), developed after the high-level vision is established.
D. An information exchange matrix, class models, and node connectivity diagrams are technical artifacts belonging to the Application and Technology Architecture domains (Phase C and D), not the business-focused Architecture Vision phase.

1. The TOGAF® Standard, Version 9.2, Section 6.3 (Phase A: Architecture Vision, Inputs): This section lists "Business capability maps" and "Value stream maps" as key inputs from the business strategy that inform the Architecture Vision. This directly supports the inclusion of business capabilities and value streams.

2. The TOGAF® Series Guide: Value Streams, Section 1.2 (Introduction): States, "Value streams provide a critical contribution to the Business Architecture. They are a key element of the TOGAF Architecture Vision and the primary mechanism for decomposing the business to a level that is relevant to the architecture."

3. The TOGAF® Series Guide: Business Capabilities, Section 2.2 (Business Capabilities and the TOGAF ADM): Explains that capability-based planning is a core technique used in the Preliminary Phase and Phase A (Architecture Vision) to focus on business outcomes. It notes, "Capability-based planning is a powerful mechanism for creating the Architecture Vision..."

4. The TOGAF® Standard, Version 9.2, Section 35.2.3 (Business Architecture Artifacts): Lists "Organization Map," "Value Stream Map," and "Capability Map" as core artifacts of the Business Architecture. Understanding these at a high level is fundamental to establishing the scope and context in Phase A.