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Architectural practice is the practice of implementing an architectural project within organization. Architectural practice consists of four key elements:

• People are the foundation of any company’s activity. If people cannot do, do not know how, do not use, do not participate, do not want to or do not do something, everything else is useless. If you have forgotten about people, you have to forget about the results.

• Artifacts. Working people must achieve predetermined results. They also create artifacts enabling to share information, discuss objectives and issues, save ideas for later implementation, monitor the achievement of results, etc.

• Processes. In order to achieve results, people must do the right things in the right sequence. All people make mistakes, but if they follow predetermined processes, the likelihood of errors decreases, and their consequences can be easily eliminated. Processes help turn good ideas into results. So, one cannot just shrug off them lightly.

• Management. Architectural practice is doomed to failure without proper management. One should determine the framework and rules of practice beforehand, taking the standard processes, artifacts, roles, etc. as a foundation. It is very dangerous to make up the rules as the game is on. People will be disoriented, processes will fail, the results will be wrong and at the wrong time.

Figure: Architectural Practice Management using “TOGAF”

Architectural practice management is required to exclude the common mistakes made by people working on a task or project. People are unlikely to achieve results if they:

• go too deep in the theory and research;

• do useless work;

• make long preparations before commencing the work;

• re-invent the wheel;

• “optimize” their work instead of doing it;

• theorize too much;

• Search for someone to blame;

• find themselves the smartest ones;

• avoid unpleasant work.

The approach to the architectural practice management consists of six main elements:

• Methodology is the main element of the approach. It defines the company’s processes for developing, updating, and implementing the Enterprise Architecture, their roles and responsibilities.

• Artifacts include a set, templates and rules for filling in the documents, tables, diagrams, used for description of the Enterprise Architecture.

• Standards are the standards, laws and rules of business and IT used by the company. These can be international standards, Russian standards, standards of the industry, region, and company.

• Best practices and ready-made models are proven ways to implement solutions, tested in your or in other companies.

• Regulations and rules are the documents describing the goals, objectives, organizational structure, rules of work and the boundaries of architectural practice. They contain the rules of work with other subdivisions, and architects’ authorities. The regulations should be integrated with other company regulations, especially those of the IT department.

• Managerial impact by practice managers are aimed to ensure practical results in the company. One needs to plan, get people to follow processes, start architectural projects, resolve conflicts, monitor intermediate results, etc. No elements will work being unmanaged.

First, the order of implementation of architectural practice includes development of all these company’s elements from scratch – that is a very difficult task to do. Therefore, one needs to take the existing methodologies and adapt them according to the company’s needs. Secondly, the practices should be introduced gradually, as a part of the practice development. The introduction of each element should be a real value for the practice. Third, one should keep a balance between bureaucracy and personal initiative. Finally, do not be afraid to experiment and try new approaches. If they are valuable, describe them in the regulations and use them in your next projects.