Framework Software Information

The Framework provides a classification schema or "periodic" table of elements. As Zachman observes, "All formal disciplines have some means by which to organize and classify its discoveries and products, whether the field of knowledge is chemistry, biology, mathematics, physics, or information." The Framework helps facilitate the communication of ideas during the architecture of complex products, whether they are buildings, industrial products, or enterprises. Literally, it provides a "frame of reference. Although the Framework describes the same thing, it is convenient and natural to view the product from the transformations of the different disciplines involved in its development. As a communications device and facilitator of change, the Framework provides an elegant tool of cognition. It is a natural, simple, straightforward, and powerful approach to addressing complex ideas, complex concepts, complex systems, complex technologies and complex products. The complete, extended Framework for a product is depicted in the following matrix. The Strategists discipline channels the ensuing activities by defining what is in and what is out of scope of the product. It defines the context of the bounds of the Framework for planning purposes and represents the identification transformation. The Technicians discipline contains the detailed configuration of subassemblies and represents the component transformation. The last transformation is not a descriptive representation - it is the realized product itself.