IT architects, especially those trained in TOGAF, often repeat a common claim: "Enterprise integration depends on IT." But look carefully at any large enterprise—banks, airlines, hospitals, government agencies—and you'll quickly notice something else: these organizations are already naturally integrated daily through human tasks, decisions, and manual processes, largely independent of IT.
So why does TOGAF persist in the myth that enterprise integration depends solely on IT?
1. The Natural Integration of Real Enterprises
Consider a major global bank employing 40,000 staff:
Less than 10% (maybe 2,000) directly handle IT tasks.
The other 38,000 employees handle strategic planning, manual compliance checks, cash transactions, customer service, sales interactions, risk management, workforce management, regulatory adherence, and countless other manual tasks and decisions every day.
This manual, human-driven integration is already happening naturally—independently of IT systems. Clearly, enterprises do not wait for IT integration to operate.
Remember clearly: Real enterprise integration happens through strategic, operational, human-driven tasks—not solely IT automation.
2. The 1820 Medical Analogy—Limited Understanding Creates Misdiagnosis
Imagine doctors trained in the 1820s who believed the entire human body was defined only by intestines and nerves. Every health issue, to them, was reduced to intestinal problems. Clearly, their narrow understanding resulted in disastrous diagnoses and ineffective treatments.
Similarly, TOGAF-certified architects, trained to view every enterprise integration challenge purely through IT lenses, repeatedly misdiagnose real integration issues. They see manual tasks, operational decisions, or strategic risks superficially or ignore them entirely.
This limited perspective leads to repeated systemic failures and operational breakdowns.