Zachman Framework

Overview

The Zachman Framework is an Enterprise Architecture framework for enterprise architecture, which provides a formal and highly structured way of viewing and defining an enterprise. It consists of a two dimensional classification matrix based on the intersection of six communication questions (What, Where, When, Why, Who and How) with six levels of reification, successively transforming the abstract ideas on the Scope level into concrete instantiations of those ideas at the Operations level. The Zachman Framework is a schema for organizing architectural artefacts (in other words, design documents, specifications, and models) that takes into account both whom the artefact targets (for example, business owner and builder) and what particular issue (for example, data and functionality) is being addressed. The Zachman Framework is not a methodology in that it does not imply any specific method or process for collecting, managing, or using the information that it describes. The Framework is named after its creator John Zachman, who first developed the concept in the 1980s at IBM. It has been updated several times since.