LEARN. PRACTICE. GROW.Concept and mechanism
Architecture affects people with different interests and decision authority. Identify who decides, operates, funds, and experiences the consequences of an interruption. Someone with little approval influence may know a critical service dependency. For each stakeholder, record concerns, required information, and participation arrangements. A representation should answer its audience’s question: coexistence costs for finance, recovery paths for operations, and service changes for business. Keep representations of the same system consistent. A simplified view may omit implementation detail, but it should not contradict constraints already agreed in another view.
Guided application
In a fictional project, the sponsor wants an earlier release while APS identifies a recovery failure. Present options with impact, available evidence, and residual risk; identify who has authority to accept that risk. Do not replace the decision with a vote on technical preferences. If an overseas team does not understand terminology, use a glossary and confirm understanding through examples. Retain the decision, disagreements, and actions. When scope changes, revisit participation: a new data flow may introduce an owner who was not previously involved. Effective communication reveals constraints early and demonstrates how they were addressed.
Financial and operational views describe the same platform coexistence.
Common pitfalls
Consulting only approvers; hiding disagreement; using one representation for every question.
Related topics: Context, mandate, and value · Vision, scope, and feasibility · Architectures and gap analysis
Choose communication by concern and retain traceability.
Reference: Practitioner competency-to-role mapping · OGEA-102; TOGAF Standard, 10th Edition