Date: February 17, 2021

TOGAF stands for The Open Group Architecture Framework. It is one of several IT architecture frameworks recognized in the IT industry and is a standard that provides a framework for effective enterprise architecture delivery, according to The Open Group, a consortium of technology standards, in the United States.

The Open Group has a TOGAF certification for people program. It consists of 2 levels: Foundation and Certified. The TOGAF Foundation level is considered to be the prerequisite for the TOGAF Certified level. Candidates can opt to do 2 exams or a combined exam to get TOGAF Certified. The TOGAF Standard at the time of writing is version 9.2.

The Open Group released a new version 10 of the TOGAF Standard in April 2022. I managed to upgrade to the new version in January 2023.

I always wanted to explore IT architecture as a discipline. Having started my IT architecture journey when I achieved the Certified IT Architect - Foundation (CITA-F) earlier, it was time to dive into an IT architecture framework. Furthermore, TOGAF is practically the IT architecture framework to "know" for IT architects.

Some time ago, I got the self-study kit but didn't understand much by reading the material. So I attended a TOGAF bootcamp in December 2020. After the bootcamp, I was fully aware of why TOGAF should be used in the first place.

I first went through the study kit's provided whitepaper, reference cards and pocket guide. These gave an overview of TOGAF in just enough detail in each of the major parts: architecture development method (ADM), enterprise continuum, architecture content framework, and achitecture capability framework.

Next, I delved in the study guides and the TOGAF Standard itself. I especially paid attention to terminologies, steps, inputs and outputs; as well as how the ADM phases are interrelated and incorporated into the framework itself (linking the other parts). The material covered in the study guides practically highlighted the key concepts by topics, which in itself was good but it didn't provide the linkage that I originally hoped for. Furthermore, I also read the relevant documents in the TOGAF Series Guides from the TOGAF Library. These "Series Guides" provided detailed guidance on how to use the TOGAF framework in special topics or areas such as business scenarios, architecture skills framework, architecture maturity models, reference models, risk & security integration, etc.

After reading through the above, I did some practice questions and developed an approach to search the TOGAF Standard for answers. This is because the TOGAF Certified exam (level 2) covers scenario questions and has access to the TOGAF Standard. By understanding why an answer choice is better than another was the key to these scenario questions.

I ended up doing 2 exams (not the combined exam). I passed the Foundation exam in mid-January and it was a breeze. In early February, I passed the Certified exam and it was a bit more challenging. I did not really need to use or search the provided TOGAF Standard during the exam but I knew where the answers would be in the Standard. It took The Open Group approximately 2 weeks to process my exam results before I got the certificate.