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Phase H: Architecture Change Management - Approach

8 important questions on Phase H: Architecture Change Management - Approach

What is the goal of Architecture Change Management and is included?

The goal of an architecture change management process is to ensure that the architecture achieves its original target business value. This includes managing changes to the architecture in a cohesive and architected way.

What are the key aspects of phase H: Architecture Change Management and why?

Capacity measurement and recommendations for planning are a key aspect of this phase.

While the architecture has been built to deliver a steady state Business Architecture with agreed capacity during the lifecycle of this Enterprise Architecture, the growth or decline in usage needs to be continually assessed to ensure that maximum business value is achieved.

t^or example, some Solution Architectures may not lend themselves to be scalable by a large factor — say 10 — or alternative solutions may be more economic when scaled up. While the architecture specifications may not change, the solutions or their operational context may change.

What will determine The value and change management process ?

circumstances under which the Enterprise Architecture, or parts of it, will be permitted to change after deployment, and the process by which that will happen
'The circumstances under which the architecture development cycle will be initiated again to develop a new architecture

What is the position of the Architecture Change process?

The architecture change management process is very closely related to the Architecture Governance processes of the enterprise, and to the management of the Architecture Contract between the architecture function and the business users of the enterprise.

What is critical for a change request in phase H Architecture Change Management ?

In Phase H it is critical that the governance body establish criteria to judge whether a Change Request warrants just an architecture update or whether it warrants starting a new cycle of the Development Method (ADM).

It is especially important to avoid "creeping elegance", and the governance body must continue to look for changes that relate directly to business value.

How is a change handled in respect to the architecture and compliancy?

An Architecture Compliance report should state whether the change is compliant to the current architecture.

If it is non-compliant, an exemption may be granted with valid rationale. If the change has high impact on the architecture, then a strategy to manage its impact should be defined.

What is the "Enterprise Architecture Change Management Process for?

The Enterprise Architecture change management process needs to determine how changes are to be managed
what techniques are to be applied
what methodologies used.
needs a filtering function that determines which phases of the architecture development process are impacted by requirements.

Changes that affect only migration may be of no interest in the architecture development phases.

Which activities are undertaken To determine whether a change is simplification, incremental, or re-architecting?

Registration of all events that may impact the architecture
Resource allocation and management for architecture tasks
The process or role responsible for architecture resources has to make assessment of what should be done
Evaluation of impacts