Enterprise Architecture Capability and Governance
Capability, board and compliance
An Enterprise Architecture Capability is the combination of roles, skills, organisation, processes and tools that enables an enterprise to practise architecture. It is established in the Preliminary Phase and matured over time; the Architecture Maturity Model describes the progression from ad hoc/none through defined and managed to measured and continuously improving. The Architecture Skills Framework defines the competencies each role needs. These are capability questions - how good are we at doing architecture - not questions about the quality of a single architecture.
The Architecture Board owns governance decisions: it reviews and endorses architecture, resolves conflicts and owns the recommendations that make architecture authoritative. Architecture Governance is direction and control - setting principles, defining contracts, reviewing compliance - and is deliberately distinct from delivery management. Phase G operationalises governance through architecture contracts and compliance reviews for each project, with the Governance Log as the record. Compliance is assessed on TOGAF's graded scale, from Irrelevant and Consistent through Compliant and Conformant to Fully Conformant, with Non-Conformant as the failure case; a non-conformance may still be accepted on business grounds, recorded with rationale and a time limit.
Traps: the Board does not do architecture, it governs it. Governance is not the same as architecture management, and the Governance Log is not the Architecture Requirements Repository. The Preliminary Phase - not Phase A - establishes capability and principles; Phase A consumes them. Maturity models describe the EA capability, not the architecture itself.
Rule of thumb: 'who decides' = Architecture Board; 'what was decided and whether it was followed' = Governance Log; 'how good is our EA function' = Maturity Model.