ADM Guidelines and Techniques
The toolbox applied inside the phases
ADM Guidelines and Techniques is a toolbox used within phases - the ADM does not work without it. Candidates must be able to name each technique and place it.
- Architecture Principles - enduring general rules (e.g. 'data is an asset'), expressed as Statement, Rationale and Implications; they must be complete, consistent and stable, and they anchor Phase A.
- Stakeholder Management - identify stakeholders, their concerns, viewpoints and views; power/interest grid triage is the classic tool.
- Business Scenarios - a structured way to discover business requirements from a real problem and to validate the architecture against it.
- Gap Analysis - baseline versus target; delete, create, change, retain; a gap is not automatically a work package.
- Business Transformation Readiness Assessment - readiness factors with ratings, judging whether the enterprise can absorb the change.
- Risk Management - risk register recording initial and residual risk levels after architecture decisions.
- Migration Planning Techniques - Implementation Factor Assessment and Deduction Matrix, and the Consolidated Gaps, Solutions and Dependencies Matrix, used in Phases E and F.
- Capability-Based Planning, Interoperability Requirements and Architecture Alternatives and Trade-offs to justify the target.
Traps: gap analysis output feeds Phase E, not Phase A or the vision statement. Business scenarios are for deriving requirements, not documenting them. The readiness assessment is not a maturity model of the EA team. Risk is recorded twice - questions frequently test 'residual risk after mitigation'.
Rule of thumb: if a question asks 'how do we know the business can cope with this change?', the answer is Business Transformation Readiness Assessment; if it asks 'what are we missing?', it is Gap Analysis.