Sunday 7 June 2015

The real fun is Enterprise Architecture Project

We Learn TOGAF and pass certification. This is the starting point. Enterprise Architecture projects come in all shapes and sizes. Sponsor (CxO) may have idea of Enterprise Architecture artifacts or may not, but they are very clear of what they wish to achieve from EA project. Let us say Business intends to reduce transaction cost by 50% in next 3 years time. So How shall we go about doing it?
As it happens in all problems, First we should understand where we are , then should check where to go and then find out steps of going from current position to the new one.Since the organizations are large in size, keeping partners updated on the impending change is a key aspect. And this we achieve by drawing logical diagrams and sharing with the Organization community. EA Tools support this by creating diagrams from Artifacts and their interrelations and sharing on intranet for collaboration. In order to remember the process I have named it as BIDI process. B for Base data gathering, I for /identification of artifacts, D for diagram representation and finally I for iav. Below are the four steps.

Go to Bottom of the problem [Base data]:

  • How we do the current work,
  • Are we doing it in best possible manner?
  • How differently we are doing our work from best practices? 
Identify Artifacts:
Business achieves its purpose by interacting with its entities. E.g. Actor, Product, Role, Business Service, Applications, Platform services etc.  Each of these entities have their own attributes. Key act of an EA is to pick these Entities from Base data. And then explain it back to user community.

Diagramatic Representation:
After hard work achieved in Artifacts identification, it is all easy going forward. The EA tool provides standard templates for each architecture domain. The EA will draw diagrams and connect relations across architecture domains (layers). Layered view is the most easily understood diagrammatic representation and helps customer get a feel of work done.

Impact Analysis Visualization [IAV]:
IAV is a process of getting to see the Entities across architecture domain from different perspective. We can take a Business Service , keep it in the center of diagram and see how it is directly on indirectly connected with other entities in the Organization. This will visualize the impact of a change on any one element.

Thursday 19 March 2015

TOGAF® to Enable the Front Line

An Organization's capability to deliver is as strong as that of the Front Line professionals.They are the Ones who interact with customers, execute POC and Projects, Participate in trouble shootings, go to Lunch with customer and even play management game across teams. They should have much more cerebrum content than just great technical and soft skills. In simple terms they should help align business and IT for customer.

Fortune 500 organizations are using TOGAF to manage Enterprise Architecture and are using that language consistently with vendors. We are mentoring two of the top IT Services organizations in India on path of Enterprise Architecture. This covers Training and short term Enterprise Architecture projects. We understand Organization’s need using business scenario techniques, and shape their way forward under guidance of upcoming market conditions.

One very important steps in this journey is TOGAF® training. We provide in-depth “TOGAF Mastery training program” which has been created geared toward participants from IT Organizations. Modelling with tool is explained bit by bit to transfer knowledge to support business capabilities. Your Customer Facing staff will have more to offer to scale up the value chain.

We impart the best quality TOGAF® 9.1 training to enrich Enterprise Architecture knowledge and clear the TOGAF® 9.1 exam with ease and confidence. Contact us for upcoming courses:

Anuj ( anuj@ccandcsolutions.com +91 9582777978) or 
Param (param@ccandcsolutions.com +91 9845885353)



Friday 13 March 2015

TOGAF Certification adds Value to Your projects

TOGAF makes a generalist out of a Specialist. Project Leader (PL) and the team invests a long time and energy meeting the schedules, only to find out that system does not meet functional requirements during Unit Testing phase. This leads to new bug identifications, new service request and SDLC phase. This no doubt the proven way of getting the functions implemented but it lacks the "First time right" principle. Addiitionally the state of affairs are like this because PL normally perceive themselves as technocrats who can solve all problems with programs. Thus challenge is more to prove the Technical Supremacy than understanding business needs.
There is a need to create considerable amount of communication between Technical team and business team. Business Associate (BA) can play a critical role in creating the right atmosphere.Now assuming that organization is able to bring the business and technical team together then PL needs to be equipped with the knowledge of asking the right question to business folks and see the value of their ask in an integrated perspective. PLs in different silos can talk among themselves to comprehend customer needs. But they will not be able to communicate effectively due to lack of Enterprise Architecture understanding. This integrated perspective and its motivation is realized in TOGAF class room course. The PL understand the four architecture domains of Business, Data, Application and Technology. We demonstrate Enterprise Architecture tool to drive home importance of modelling while teaching the technique.
Participants in our course visually see the Layered view from Location to Infrastructure to Application to Business service. Inter relations among Entities are established and Impact Analysis is explained in an easy to understand manner. The decision maker can easily identify the business services impacted in case of a disaster at a location and do preemptive planning. Since PL will understand technical details they also start seeing value in Business and IT realignment.

Saturday 21 February 2015

Modelling Class Session Clears all doubts of Meta model and Content Framework

Module 4,5,6,7 of TOGAF 9.1 COURSE is very difficult to understand in theory, no matter how hard the trainer tries. We had been getting this feed back consistently in our courses. Now we have introduced Familiarization of an Enterprise Architecture Tool. The trainer now

  • Shows participants the Folder structure for an Enterprise Architecture Project. 
  • Shows Standard Togaf Templates
  • Creates Entities for a Particular Business for all Architectural Domains
  • Creates Relations among entities based on Metamodel rules.
  • Shows Visuals using template
  • Demonstrates Impact Analysis Visualization
  • Instructor uses pedagogy technique so that all in class can receive the concepts.
Once the participants have gone through this session then it becomes very easy to understand Enterprise Continuum, Meta-model and Content Framework.

Wednesday 26 March 2014

Who are the Best Togaf Accredited training course (TATC) in India

There are three well known Togaf Accredited training course providers: Enterprise Architects, iCMG and CC and C Solutions.

I cannot speak for others but I can certainly point out the differential that CC and C Solutions enjoys:

We have a decade-old long-standing and close relationship with The Open Group. We are a Gold Member with Open Group. That means What we say is what we do.

We provide the best quality TOGAF® training. Having been in the training industry for over a decade, we know what it takes to be a great trainer. All of our trainers have real world experience and are selected because of their consistently high standards and feedback. Our aim is to give you the skills and confidence you need to deliver Enterprise Architecture. As you would be aware, our course fee is the lowest for such a high quality accredited TOGAF® 9.1 course anywhere.
CC&C solutions has great experience in working on enterprise architecture engagements for customers across the globe and most of it has involved the use of TOGAF®. Apart from TOGAF® 9.1 theory, our training course takes a practical orientation from our collective experiences in TOGAF® work and thus also focuses on the practical aspects of TOGAF® 9 - the aspects (and challenges) of applying TOGAF® in real EA work. We also offer constant support to the participants with any questions they might have on TOGAF® anytime after the course is over without any charges.
We are vendor-neutral and vendor-agnostic in our training and consulting and have successfully worked with our customers due to this. In our training, we provide multi vendor examples. Organizations such as yours would have heterogeneous environments/systems and multi-vendor environments to deal with. And, therefore you and your employees have to have a broader perspective and have to be vendor-neutral in your approach during architecture work. If you are part of a service provider company (such as IBM, Accenture, Capgemini etc.), while engaging with your customers, you as a professional will need to work with heterogeneous environments/systems and multi-vendor environments. And, therefore you have to have a broader perspective and have to be vendor-neutral in your approach during customer engagements. So, our training approach will be very much useful and aligned to your needs.

We provide advice and training suitable to global and Indian conditions - Our instructors for these India programs are based in India (this is an advantage) and have very good connect with the experience and challenges of the participants and thus will have better connect with the participants in the class - our instructors will have clear understanding of what is happening here in India and also the globe. This leads to the participants better understanding the subject and able to discuss their architecture work related challenges. 

All of this would be great value-add from our TOGAF® 9.1 training course and would be hard to find elsewhere.See us on Facebook

It is important to understand concepts of Togaf before certification

Self study route is clumsy. I have had students who were TOGAF certified mostly by self-study and some amount of guidance within their organization. They attended my class room course post certification because they realized that their knowledge was not usable just by achieving the Certification.
So we should first Learn and understand TOGAF and then certify. Complete understanding is not possible in short time but Accredited Training course will create the right perspective and pointers to every module of TOGAF
Liked this topic? Please like us at Facebook.

Advantages of TOGAF®9 Certification:

There are numerous benefits from TOGAF® (training and certification) to one as an individual:
·  Better career prospects. TOGAF® 9 certification and knowledge will add good weight to resume and enable for higher level roles and opportunities 
·  There are good opportunities around the world for senior architects, Consultants, or Enterprise Architects (EA), especially those who have TOGAF® certification because more and more companies are adopting TOGAF® for their architecture work. One may check out openings posted in LinkedIn.com. Some of them refer to the role as Senior consultant or principal architect or principal technology architect or chief architect or IT architect.
·  TOGAF® certification is a validation of one’s knowledge and comprehension of TOGAF® 9 and also one’s ability to analyze and apply TOGAF® 9 in real life situations. It provides a qualification which is a demonstration of detailed knowledge of TOGAF® and EA. It formally recognizes skills in TOGAF® and EA. 
·  Now a days more and more of clients of IT services companies are insisting that only TOGAF® certified architects be sent for their engagements - this helps the client also to have standard vocabulary and consistent architecture method among its architects and architects from its service provides. It has become a requirement.
·  Knowledge of Enterprise Architecture EA and TOGAF® 9.1. With this knowledge, one will be adding more value to current job and customer project or customer engagement. The product or solution that one will provide to the customer will be more effective, optimal, successful, and save costs for the customer.
·  Understanding of the relationship of TOGAF® to other EA frameworks  
·  Ability to take on and solve bigger problems at the customer side and within organization.
·  Helps you earn credibility with senior business executives including CXO level executives
·  Gives higher self-esteem and job satisfaction
·  Helps create an architecture mind-set in the participant
·  Gives the opportunity to establish EA roles in organization and take the initiative 
Please visit us at Facebook