Standardisation and controls are fundamental principles in ensuring an efficient and effective IT services organisation. Architectural frameworks allow various aspects of an organisation to be defined and mapped out in both business and technical context. These contexts then have a series of standards, principles and patterns defined that help ensure consistency of definition, selection and delivery of technology systems and services.
There are a variety of architectural frameworks openly available and a wide range of architectural tools that can be used to support the process of definition and ongoing management of architectural artefacts. Establishing an architecture function, resourced by appropriately skilled staff and enabled by a suitable toolset, can be the first step on the road to increased capability, capacity and maturity for an organisation. However, such frameworks can be complex and overly onerous, and it is often best to initially take a practical and pragmatic approach to selection and implementation of an architecture framework, function and toolset.