Throughout the execution of an ADM, several types of outputs are produced. Some of them are process flows, project plans, compliance assessments, and so on. TOGAF provides an architecture content framework that offers a structural model for the architectural content. This structural model allows several types of work products to be defined, structured, and presented in a consistent manner.
The architecture content framework basically uses three types of categories to denote the specific type of architectural work product under consideration. They are the following:
A deliverable is a type of work product that is reviewed and agreed upon formally by the stakeholders. Deliverables are typical outputs of projects and they are in the form of documents. These deliverables are either archived or transferred to an architecture repository as a model standard at the time of completion of the project.
An artifact is a type of work product that describes some specific aspect of an architecture.
Some important categories of artifacts are as follows:
- Catalogs (list things)
- Matrices (show relationship between various things)
- Diagrams (depict pictures of things)
Some common examples are a requirements catalog, use-case diagram, interaction diagram, and so on.
A building block denotes a fundamental component of IT or architectural capability that can potentially be combined with other building blocks to develop and deliver architectures.
Building blocks can be specified at various levels of detail based on the stage at which architecture development of the system has reached. For example, at very initial stages, the building block could be just a name that may later get involved into a complete specification of the component and its design.
There are two types of building blocks, they are:
- Architecture building blocks (ABBs): They describe the capability that is expected from the architecture. This capability then describes the specification that will be used for making the building blocks of the solution. For example, customer service could be an example of a capability that is needed within an enterprise, which may have several solutions blocks such as applications, processes, data, and so on.
- Solution building blocks (SBBs): They denote the various components that will be used in the implementation of the required capability.
The relationships between deliverables, artifacts, and building blocks are depicted in the following diagram:
All the artifacts pertaining to architecture are interrelated in some way or the other. A specific architecture definition document may refer several other complementary artifacts. The artifacts could belong to various building blocks which are part of the architecture under consideration. The following example pertains to the target call handling process. The various references to other building blocks are depicted in the following diagram:
