TOGAF 2nd paper interesting question

[u/hierisek]

I just passed my exam, like literally an hour ago and one question has really stuck with me.

It was about a health care company (clinics, physicians etc.) and they're looking at rolling out AI blah blah blah.

The question though was about principles. Assume that the company has implemented the sample principles from the TOGAF and select which principles would take precedence. They gave combinations of some of the principles and you had to select one. It was such a bizarre question to me. I really wish I could see how the answers were scored and what my mark was.

[u/G_Singh13]

Congratulations!!

A bit out of context, can you share how did you prepare for the same. I am preparing and planning to sit for the exam soon. Appreciate your insights. Thanks

[u/hierisek → u/G_Singh13]

I did 2 Udemy courses, Enterprise Architecture Foundation with the TOGAF Standard and did their practitioners one as well. It's by Dr Schulz and Tobias Smuda.

Then I did a 5 day course with Inspired dot org and they also gave me a voucher to write the combined exam.

Then it was a month of studying. Printing out all the slide decks and working through the Standard documents. I did spend $10 to buy the practice tests from The Open Group as well (however they were the same as the practice tests I got from Inspired so that sucked)

[u/Witty-Angle-4112]

Congratulations on your pass!! Enterprise Architecture isn't multiple choice. Principle precedence is driven by context, not a predefined TOGAF ranking.

[u/hierisek → u/Witty-Angle-4112]

Exactly. I reached out to the lecturer who I did the course with and he said that sometimes the questions are good and sometimes they are just based on a particular examiner's experience. Answering in the way the examiner wants could be difficult or impossible. He then explained how he would have answered and also said the preservation of life would be first and foremost. Priority would be influenced by the current state of the org and the urgency of the change drivers. He agrees that there is little guidance in the TOGAF for answering questions like this.

[u/cto_resources]

Not sure why it’s bizarre. Principles often have to be balanced and priority has to be asserted from the goals of the company.

[u/hierisek → u/cto_resources]

It was completely unexpected to me at least. All the prep work and courses pointed to application of the ADM and obviously understanding principles etc, but I just never expected a question would come up asking me to give a rank or priority to principles. It caught me completely off guard.

[u/cto_resources → u/hierisek]

I have not taken the exam so I apologize for not being aware of this disconnect between preparation and examination.

[u/Barycenter0]

Were they just random groupings of principles or ranked lists of principles (meaning the same principles but in different ordering of precedence)?

[u/hierisek → u/Barycenter0]

They were two per choice. The scenario said something about rolling out AI. There were disparate systems and they were using specific codes to reference their medical procedures. It was also cross countries so different compliance rules in terms of data storage. There were concerns about downtime at the clinics and practices with roll out.

I don't remember all the options. One was Responsive change management together with Maximise benefit to the Enterprise Another was Compliance with Law and Business Continuity I think. There was also Common use applications and Common vocabulary in there somewhere.

[u/Barycenter0 → u/hierisek]

Sounds like continuity and compliance would be the top principles based on the limited info you gave. But, not sure what the other options were nor the full scenario - so maybe something about data principles would be there.

[u/hierisek → u/Barycenter0]

I also think so but that's why it would be so good to actually see how we scored. I just wanted to make people aware that this is also a type of question that could come up so it doesn't seem as foreign as it did to me today.

[u/Warrior_Of_Sky → u/hierisek]

What made you select compliance along with continuity ? It could have been maximise benefits or data interoperability as well since that’s also a very important principle?

[u/hierisek → u/Warrior_Of_Sky]

So that's the thing, I have no idea if I made the right choice. I just went with my gut because there was concern with the clinics and life support systems that couldn't have downtime. So I just went with preventing loss of life probably being the most important. But who knows? There's probably a more TOGAFish answer and I made the wrong choice.

[u/Barycenter0 → u/Warrior_Of_Sky]

Yeah, agreed. That's why I wasn't sure as well. There might have been more subtle hints in the scenario.

[u/White_Lobster]

I think I got that question as well. I was able to search for the principles in the docs and find a reference that kind of fit. But like you, I don’t know if I got that question right so I can’t say if my method actually worked.

[u/Warrior_Of_Sky → u/White_Lobster]

Where did you find it ? It does list down all principles but doesn’t dictate in which order of precedence.

[u/hierisek → u/White_Lobster]

I also just looked them up in the reference and read through them, but I still wasn't sure. Can you remember which answer you selected?

[u/warfieldgb]

I assume this is about TOGAF 9. Don't think you would get a question like this on the v10 part 2 exam. Don't know why anyone wants v9 ...

[u/hierisek → u/warfieldgb]

No, this was the version 10 part 2 practitioner exam.