Open Comments - Episode 24: Celebrating the 15 Year Anniversary of the ArchiMate® Forum with Kelly Canon, Marc Lankhorst, Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie, and Leos Mates

Ever wondered how a Dutch research project evolved into a global standard? Join us for a special celebration of the ArchiMate® Forum's 15th anniversary as we uncover the fascinating history and impact of ArchiMate. Featuring insights from Kelly Cannon, Forum Director, and Marc Lankhorst, a key pioneer in the ArchiMate Forum's development,  Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie,  and Leos Mates. This episode promises a deep dive into the journey from its 2002 inception to its adoption by The Open Group in 2009. Hear about the early stakeholder collaboration, the creation of a sustaining Dutch foundation, and the strategic handover to The Open Group. 

We'll also explore how the ArchiMate Forum has grown, focusing on its specification evolution and how it's become more user-friendly and community-driven over the years. Learn about the practical steps taken to make ArchiMate accessible, such as the Beginner's Guide, and get a sneak peek into the upcoming Leader's Guide. Discover the importance of an open exchange file format that allows seamless sharing of architectural models across tools. From NATO's standardization efforts to strategic planning in banking and government sectors, this episode highlights the diverse applications and maturity of ArchiMate users. Tune in to understand how this powerful tool supports in-depth analysis and decision-making far beyond just creating visual models.

Copyright © The Open Group 2023-2024. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Open Comments with myself, ash Me Oliver.

Speaker 2: 0:05

And me Irene.

Speaker 1: 0:07

For a special episode on the 15-year anniversary of the Archimate Forum.

Speaker 3: 0:11

So first off, I'd like to just get everyone to start introducing themselves to our listeners and maybe talk a bit about what you do and maybe any interesting facts about yourselves. So I'll start with Kelly.

Speaker 4: 0:26

So thank you for having me. My name is Kelly Cannon, I am the Forum Director of the Archimate Forum and I've been with the Open Group for a little over eight and a half years at this point, and I've been working with all of the gentlemen on this call for several years at this point. So I think, in general, we have quite a good crew on our team yes, I'm Mark Lockhorst.

Speaker 2: 0:49

I work for BizDesign for over 10 years now, but my history was Archimate goes back before that, because Archimate started as a research project in the Netherlands and I was the project manager of that and that was with an applied R&D institute, a project combining organizations from practice and from academia, and actually that is the same institute from which BizDesign was a spin-off even before the Archimede project. So there is a long history and we'll talk more about that later in this podcast.

Speaker 5: 1:22

Hello Smates. I am working for Dane, which is a company providing some architecture tools, and I'm mostly working for the government, mainly in Czech, and also I'm a vice chair of Archimate Forum.

Speaker 3: 1:39

Welcome all to the podcast. Everyone, it's great to have you for this special 15 year, archimede.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Forum anniversary. Please can we start with you, mark, to give our listeners a brief history of how Archimede Forum started and how it came to the Open Group.

Speaker 2: 1:53

Yeah, so Archimede as a as a research project. I mentioned that it started from a Dutch applied R&D institute. It was called the Telemedica Institute and that's that was founded to do these kinds of projects in between industry and academia. And actually, before the Archimate project we did a similar project on process modeling, process management, even before the BPMN language existed, and that was where BizDesign came out of as a spin-off company. But that's before Archimate.

Speaker 2: 2:24

Archimate as a project started in 2002 because several of the organizations we were working with at the time saw the need for a standard for describing architectures, just like you do, say, describe software in UML or processes in BPMN nowadays maybe not at that time, but a standardized way of working, because they had many architects some of them were well, there was a large bank in there, the Dutch tax administration was in there with literally hundreds of architects, a large pension fund, and they all had that need of better communication between architects so that they understood each other, rather than having, say, your typical PowerPoint architecture where you always have to ask the architects hey, that box over there, what does that mean? And that line over there, that arrow, shouldn't that be in the other direction? They wanted to have something standard so they could use different tools based on the same standards, exchange knowledge, have consultants speak that standard, et cetera. Now it was just an applied R&D project at the time, but the stakeholders really asked us to come up with a standard. And it doesn't work that way, right? You can't just say, oh, let's create a standard. So we did that project from 2002 until 2004, evolving the language and doing all kinds of related things around it, around visualization and analysis of architectures etc. And then in 2004, the project. At the end of that year the project was finished. But then the Archimede language itself well, it was in, you could say, version pre-1, it was before the version 1 that the Open Group published later on. But that was more or less the same.

Speaker 2: 4:05

And we did already have involvement of some tool vendors four of them, including BizDesign, but some others as well that saw that same need among their constituency. Their customers had that same need for better support, better standardization of architecture models. There were also companies providing courses on it, especially in the Netherlands. There was, at the same time, a huge interest in architecture from the government. Several reference architectures were developed at different levels of government and I mentioned the Dutch Tax Administration, but they were kind of a forerunner in this area. Others also had that need to exchange information, say between municipalities, so they could share architecture info. So there was that need and there was a community forming and we started a foundation in the Netherlands under Dutch law, so a non-profit organization to keep Archimede alive after their project and evolve it and eventually hand it over to a standardization organization, ideally.

Speaker 2: 5:04

Well, there are a few steps in between. It took a few years. We had conversations with the object management group, the UML people, also with the open group. Initially the open group said, well, language standardization is more something for the OMG, but eventually the architecture forum, they were working on a notation to use with TOGAF. And just when they started that working group, we came along and said, hey, we have a standard proposal, we have support from industry, we have practical use, we have a courseware, et cetera. Dear open group, would you like to have that? That was kind of the message.

Speaker 2: 5:48

And then, because we well, we came at the right time when the architecture forum was looking at developing something to support TOGAF. So I think timing was right. And then it was handed over to the Open Group. So that was in 2008 and then in 2009 the first version of ArchiMate under the aegis of the Open Group. So that was in 2008, and then in 2009 the first version of Archimedes under the aegis of the Open Group came out, and that's then, indeed, 15 years ago this year, 20 years ago, that the project ended. So yeah, I think, two reasons to celebrate the anniversaries of Archimedes in 2024.

Speaker 3: 6:23

Great. Thank you, Mark. 15 years on one project and you've been involved in it from the start, have you?

Speaker 2: 6:30

Yeah, For me it's 22 years now.

Speaker 6: 6:33

Wow.

Speaker 2: 6:33

Maybe 23 if you count some pre-phase there. So yeah, that's pretty long, but I haven't been involved that closely all the time. Of course, in the first version I was heavily involved, the second version more as a reviewer, because then BizDesign was driving the adoption by the open group and I wasn't working for BizDesign at the time. As I mentioned, I transferred about 10 years ago. So ever since I went to BizDesign I'm deeply involved again. So version two of the language, I was more at a distance doing some review work, but version three, I've been deeply involved again. So version two of the language, I was more at a distance doing some review work, but well, version three, I've been deeply involved again.

Speaker 4: 7:13

I would say that Mark is like the father of Archimate. He's definitely someone who is very heavily recognized within the industry and when people think of Archimate, they think of Mark, they think of Jean-Baptiste and a few others, and that really has helped push the standard and the adoption of Archimate into the future.

Speaker 3: 7:41

So we're talking about the adoption of Archimate Lios. Perhaps is there something you can tell us about the application of Archimate.

Speaker 5: 7:51

Well, sure, well, I think Archimate is well adopted in the government sector because you have to drive the expenses there and, for example, I had prepared a case study which was managed in the government EA work group, in the open group and about the Czech adoption of Archimate and basically it was about that all IT expenses above 1 million euro needs to be approved by the office of the chief e-government architect in the Czech Republic, so well, to support the interoperability and to maintain all the government stuff and mainly IT stuff. So if you go through the publications which were in the library or they are in the library, you can see a lot of them according to government sector. So it's basically driven by the expenses. But the Archimate model is there and every government agency has to have the Archimate model and prove that they are not doing the same as other agencies or they are handling the data in the correct way.

Speaker 4: 9:29

So, jb, tell us how the forum has been able to support and evolve the specification. What are the goals within the months leading up to the release?

Speaker 6: 9:37

Hi, my name is Jean-Baptiste Sardy. I work for BNP Paribas Bank where I'm in charge of architecture frameworks and training for the world group. I'm also an enterprise architect myself and I've been working with the Archimedes standard since 2011,. And I've been part of the open group since 2016. And I'm also the current chair of the Archimedes forum.

Speaker 6: 9:58

The way the forum did support the specification over the years changed quite a bit. At the beginning, when the firm worked on the first versions of the specification I mean version 1, 2 and 3, it was really about making sure that the specification was kind of complete, Because the first version was only including three layers so business, application and technology and was kind of missing things around which was not in the primary focus but was needed for expressing, documenting and sharing enterprise architectures as a whole. And and then later versions version two and and then three and then 3 added several layers and aspects on top of that. So it was kind of very intense work to make sure that it was possible to use Archimedes to express any aspects of an enterprise architecture. But since 2016, which means the release of the version 3.0, it's no more about adding more and more things in the specification. It's really about making it more and more useful and accessible for people, which implies that we do think that we now have a very mature specification and we shift our focus on making sure that we have a community around it and making sure that we have enough documentation, examples, case studies and things like that that are absolutely needed for people to start using Archimate.

Speaker 6: 11:38

It's one thing to be trained to Archimate, but it's very different to be able to actually use it and put it into practice on a day-to-day job, and that's where our focus is nowadays making sure that people can understand how to use it, depending on their skills levels and the context in which they are working. This, for example, means that we are working on what we call an Archimate Beginner's Guide, which will help people to start working with Archimate what we call an Archimate Beginner's Guide, which will help people to start working with Archimate, and we hope to add another guide later on on top of that, which will be what we can call a kind of leader's guide, as we already have for TOGAF, which will explain to people how to put in place an architectural modeling practice in their organization and how to set up skills trainings. I want to organize their model, or models if you have several of them, which is usually the case. So, yeah, things did change quite a lot.

Speaker 6: 12:38

Another aspect is that, because we really want to make sure that architectural descriptions produced using Archimate can be exchanged across tools, there has been a strong focus on making Archimate an executable standard, which means, in this context, to deliver an open exchange file format which does allow people to export or import a model, whatever their tool, meaning that you can, for example, ask some of your suppliers to provide you information about their solutions or part of their solutions expressed in Archimate, that you can later import in your own tool.

Speaker 6: 13:21

You can also exchange several informations, and this also makes it possible to address some other use cases which are not really about seeing the modellization but being able to react and use and report on the information contained inside. In addition to those guides I was speaking about just before, we are planning for the next 12, 18 months to work on the new version of the specification, and these new versions might be a major version. I mean, this might be a version in which we add some kind of breaking changes that we discussed about in the past internally in the forum, but also with the community. So in the really near future, by the end of the year, we will share some of those ideas with the community to get feedback and to make sure that if we start working on those breaking changes it will address some new use cases and we've solved some issues that people have today with.

Speaker 1: 14:29

Arquimate. So, mark, can you tell us about the application of Arquimate in the government sector, specifically about NATO?

Speaker 2: 14:38

Yeah, NATO some years ago decided that they have a similar problem of exchanging architecture information and until then they were using their own homegrown standard for that. But that was difficult to find tools for that, difficult to find people who knew that standard. So they decided to standardize on two alternative metamodels. One is the Archimedes standard and another one is UML and SysML based and that's part of the NATO architecture framework version four. So as part of that framework, Archimedes is one of the two approved standards for describing architectures and they have described all kinds of reference content from NATO itself in Archimedes to exchange with NATO members. So it's used for that purpose again, exchanging architecture information between different organizations or within large organizations in a standardized way.

Speaker 5: 15:36

Well, I think it's also commonly used in the bank sector, if you agree, mark.

Speaker 2: 15:43

Yes, there's a reference architecture for banks, the BIAN standard expressed in Archimate, and there are some other areas where it's really commonly used.

Speaker 5: 15:55

Well, and what I see is that the Archimate is trending, like in the government sector mainly, and when they are, for example, making their strategies, they find out that if they use Archimate instead of just some paperwork in Word or just writing it or so on the objects and how are the things connected together, they get different viewpoints and they can look on the strategy in different level. And I think that that that opens the usage of Archimate in in the government sector also yeah, it's this, this analysis that you can do.

Speaker 2: 16:52

It's not just about drawing pictures and designing stuff that somebody needs to build, but it's really also about analyzing, and that could be say analyzing how your business goals are are effectively implemented via some projects and programs, or vice versa. How much are you spending on it, and if you roll that up to your business capabilities, which capabilities receive the largest investments, and then compare that to how strategically important those capabilities are and are you then investing in the right stuff, those kinds of analyses really help, and that's that's what I also really see with with our customers, for example.

Speaker 2: 17:28

That's the more mature arcumate users do this kind of work. They don't just draw some pictures, they really use these models in in the way that they are intended, by creating dashboards and analyses and reports and all sorts of interesting information that supports the business in decision making. So it's much more than creating a design that needs to be built. It's really also about business decision making and supporting that.

Speaker 5: 17:57

Yeah, and in the government you can imagine how many systems there are and how they are connected to each other. So more complicated environment than the need of usage of Archimate grows up.

Speaker 2: 18:12

You can't just describe it on the back of a napkin anymore. It's really complex and interconnected and all the risks you run if you change something somewhere and everything else needs to move because it's interconnected and if you don't know about these connections, things will fail, etc. So, yeah, the complexity is really high, and especially in government. I would say large companies have similar issues, but the government is is more interconnected. It's not just within government agencies, but they're also exchanging all kinds of information all across the whole of government, up and down between different levels of government, in between all kinds of organizations. At a European level. The European reference architecture for interconnecting government agencies is also expressed in Archimate. So you have it there. The European system of central banks have a reference architecture to interconnect all these central banks. That's expressed in Archimate. So you see all these kinds of use cases where stuff needs to be connected, where Archimate plays a role.

Speaker 4: 19:15

To add to that. I know we've been talking a lot about government and the use of Archimate in government, but it is also important to note as well that it is not just limited to the government sector or the banking sector. An organ, an organization chart within your organization or you know, doing something as complex as as modeling out your government agency as well.

Speaker 2: 19:49

Yeah, definitely it's. It's because it's just about managing complexity in organizations and that doesn't really doesn't really matter if you're an enterprise, if you're in a government agency or some, some, some company, or indeed if you start small. You can start with a small argument model and the larger the organization, the bigger the need for this complexity becomes and the more value you get out of your models. But you can start small, and that's also typically how large organizations start. They don't try to boil the ocean and model their entire organization. They start in a small area where they get traction, where they know the people, know the information they need to put in, and then grow their architectures from there and gradually add value, because the bigger the model, the more you can get out of it.

Speaker 1: 20:38

So of course it works at different, different levels of scale can you tell our listeners about training opportunities and how it can?

Speaker 6: 20:48

set individuals apart, starting at their university well, there's several ways to get trained to archimate. Of course, some people could try to just read the specification and read some books about Archimedes, like, for example, marc Lancor's book Enterprise Architects at Work or Herb and Vierda's book Mastering Archimedes. But reading the specification in those books will usually not be enough for people to really understand Archimate and understand how to put it into practice. So being able to have a real training which could be, by the way, either a good e-learning or remotely delivered training or an in-person training, of course, which, in my opinion, is still the best because of the way you can interact with people is usually the best option to understand Archimate. That's quite easy to find such trainings and trainings organizations because there's an official register on the OpenHoop website where you can find not only the name of the training organization that delivers such trainings but also the upcoming dates for those trainings. So that's usually the usual way, I would say, for people to be trained. The only missing thing, in my opinion, is that being trained and certified at the end is usually not enough for people to be able to put arguments into practice in their day-to-day jobs. So we need to find some ways for those people to be helped to understand how to start really developing their own models and views and defining their viewpoints developing their own models and views and defining their viewpoints.

Speaker 6: 22:43

So that's quite a lot of work that people cannot usually get just from one training, which makes me think that one of the best ways for people to understand Archimate and to use it would be to have a training on Archimate and then have some times with some knowledgeable people to understand how to use it, to do some kind of long-term exercises, which makes me think that at the end of the day, that's really something that should be done by university.

Speaker 6: 23:15

I mean, there's lots of things that universities already today teach around enterprise architecture, but Archimedes is usually not one of those things. It starts to be included in some regions or parts of the world, like India, but that's only the beginning. I really do think that most universities should include as part of their architecture or enterprise architecture trainings, one part dedicated to Archimate. That should not be just one of thing, but something which has been done at the beginning and used as a way for those students to do their kind of homework around enterprise architecture, meaning that we would have time to really use Archimate to do their kind of homework around enterprise architecture, meaning that they would have time to really use Archimate, and using Archimate is usually the best way to understand it.

Speaker 4: 24:11

What's great about our forum in general is that we have people from all of these different backgrounds that are able to bring all of this experience into the forum to discuss, but it also allows us to have an opportunity to, especially as we start to look forward. In the next 12 to 18 months, we are going to be taking a look at the Archimate 3.2 version that is currently out there and starting to receive commentary in impossible change requests to put out a new version sometime in 2025. So one of the things that we would like to do with this podcast that we're doing right now is to let everyone know, whether you are a member or non-member, that starting in September, we are going to start receiving feedback from those practitioners, trainers, anyone who utilizes Archimate in some capacity. We're going to encourage you to start putting in comments to where you would like to possibly see some changes, and some of those changes in Archimate might be as simple as maybe it's a grammatical error or maybe it's a discussion point that we need to have. Maybe we're talking about AI and how does that affect our current standard and our conformance requirements?

Speaker 4: 25:33

So what I would encourage everyone to do is to continue to watch this space where you will be putting out information on the Archimate user community, which, if you are not familiar, if you go to Archimatecommunityorg, you will be able to join the current discussion boards that we have related to Archimate. You can ask questions. If you are a new practitioner and you are stuck on something, you absolutely could reach out to someone there and have a little mentorship going on. We also have, as Mark mentioned, a very robust Archimate LinkedIn group that you can pose questions and participate in those discussions, but this is also where we are going to start taking some change requests in and continuing those discussions as we start to move to a new version of Archimate in 2025.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Yeah, and. I think the fact that we've kept the language moving along with requirements from the community is one of the success factors as well. It's been updated several times, adding useful concepts, changing things based on input from the community, and I think that's important for a standard. To keep it alive, it has to be kept current with current needs.

Speaker 1: 26:56

Thank you all for joining us on Open Comments and for giving our listeners an explorative insight into the Archimedes Forum's 15-year anniversary, and we'd like to extend a big congratulations on that anniversary and thank you again for everyone for joining us on Open Comments. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4: 27:15

Thank you.