The Zachman Framework Requires ZERO Documentation

OThe Framework is the Ontology

I have no idea where people get the idea that the Zachman Framework requires any documentation at all. The Zachman Framework is an ontology – the theory of the existence of essential components of an enterprise (actually, of anything) that warrant description in order to successfully create it, operate it or change it. Whether any or all of those components are described (documented, made explicit) is a function of a methodology and the choice of the Enterprise… not a requirement of the Framework.

Models give you Power

Somehow or other, people hear me say, "Stop the music for 15 or 20 years until you get all of these models built and then you can start writing code again." I have NEVER said anything even close to that.

What I have said is, "Some day… SOMEDAY, you are going to wish… forget you… SOMEDAY the ENTERPRISE is going to WISH they had all of these models made explicit, all of them Enterprise-wide, all of them horizontally integrated, all of them vertically integrated, all of them at excruciating level of detail." Why? Because, if they had all of those models made explicit, they would have a VERY powerful capability to accommodate extreme complexity and extreme rates of change. I have NEVER said when I thought that would be. I have ALWAYS said that might even be utopia… you might NEVER formalize all of the models. I have said, the 80/20 rule probably is in effect. If you have 80%, you might not need the other 20%. In fact, if you had 20% of the models, you might not need the other 80%. I also have said that in order to achieve the utopian condition of all the models formalized, it likely would require a lot of work and therefore, methodologically, you will probably have to figure out how to achieve that iteratively and incrementally over some longer period of time.