The Zachman framework is a nice example of so-called “IT Entreprise Architecture”. Such approach is directed at a comprehensive approach to the design, implementation and execution of IT strategy within an enterprise.
The Zachman framework has two dimensions.
The first dimension is the dimension of a party. Going from top to bottom,
- we show the enterprise from an executive point of view, that sets the scope,
- an owner view, that steers the daily business within the scope provided
- an architectural view that provides a logical overview of the daily processes as defined above
- the engineering view that translates a logical overview into something that can be built
- the technical view that actually implements the strategy
- the user perspective that uses above components
Next to that, we have a second dimensions that describes what items must be modelled.
We have:
- “what”: identification of items
- “how”: identification of processes
- “where”: the geographical component
- “who”: the division into roles and responsibilities
- “when”: the division over time
- “why”: the motivation why everything above is undertaken.
A nice overview is given here: Zachman Framework 3.0