Aligning the Zachman EA Framework and the SDLC

Lately I have been looking into the alignment between the Zachman Enterprise Architecture (EA) Framework and the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

Zachman is a matrix-based EA framework. The rows are considered stakeholder perspectives or abstractions. Columns represent the different communications questions. At the intersection of these rows and columns are artifacts or tasks, which may produce an artifact in another intersection. Zachman provides a taxonomy for the organization of artifacts. Most organizations will tailor the Zachman framework and the artifacts produced. For example, a combination of intersections at a given perspective (e.g. Planner) may result in one artifact (e.g. Business Case).

On the other hand, the SDLC is a life cycle methodology for the inception, development/implementation, operation and retirement phases of a system.

In general the SDLC consists of the following phases:

1. Project planning
2. Feasibility
3. Analysis
4. Requirements
5. Design 
6. Implementation
7. Test
8. Maintenance
9. Retirement

In each of the above phases one or more artifacts are produced. For example, in the feasibility or analysis phases a business case along with business requirements may be the resultant artifact. In the Design phase an organization may require UML or Visio diagrams be produced. Like Zachman, most organizations tailor the SDLC in terms of the artifacts produced from the various phases.

So how does the Zachman framework and the SDLC align to each other? Quite nicely in fact. For example, combining the Zachman "Designer" perspective's Logical Data Model (Data/What), System Architecture Model (Function/How), and Distributed Systems Architecture (Network/Where) may result in one SDLC artifact, perhaps called the Solution Design document, that maps to the SDLC Design phase.

Another example may be combining the Zachman's "Builder" perspective's Technology Design Model (Function/How) and Technology Architecture (Network/Where) in a Visio diagram detailing the "as built" implementation. This would correspond with the SDLC Implementation phase.

Organizations looking to implement the Zachman EA framework and align it to their existing SDLC, or vice versa, must spend some time to understand what processes, life cycle phases and resultant artifacts they really require. Once that's complete, aligning the SDLC and Zachman should be a fairly minor exercise.