Who Still Cares About Enterprise Architecture in 2022? – Part 2

Today’s content forms the second installment of a six‑part series titled “Who Still Cares About Enterprise Architecture in 2021?”. In this series I examine the current footprint of enterprise architecture (EA), the potential demise of the EA architect role, major players such as The Open Group, AWS or Azure’s TOGAF, the role of EA tool vendors, related certifications and market developments.

In this second part I dive deeper into the Google Trends analysis presented in the first part and investigate The Open Group’s certification environment. Both sources confirm that, although many EA terms are becoming less prominent, the underlying content remains current.

Whether you are reading this article or listening to the podcast version on my site, be sure to check the other parts of the series as soon as possible.

2022 – Who Still Cares About Enterprise Architecture?

– Part 2 of 6 The first part ended with questions about whether EA is dead, based on several findings. The second part argues against that view.

A major argument comes from Google Trends, which shows a clear decline in interest for several key EA search terms. It is important to understand that Google search has shifted from generic terms to more specific topics. General management of the architecture layer is an example of such generic terms. Today, people are more interested in concrete topics and concepts related to enterprise and IT architecture.

High Demand for Specific EA Terms

Figure 2 again shows the search request volume for the term “enterprise architecture” in blue, this time compared with “master data”, “scaled‑agile framework”, “cloud‑native computing foundation” and “micro‑services”. While these keywords are also related to the EA field, they have shown strong growth in search volume over the past few years.

Interestingly, the more specific the sub‑topic, the more pronounced its performance. For example, “micro‑services”, a subset of the application environment, has higher search volume. Likewise, “master data”, a subset of data management, generally outperforms the overall “enterprise architecture” search volume.

In other words, insights from Google Trends indicate that interest in generic EA terminology is decreasing, while interest in more specific search terms – which are the core of EA – is increasing.

New TOGAF Strategy

The second major argument of the first part is that updates to the TOGAF standard are insufficient to address the challenges faced by organizations in the digital age.

Surprisingly, diminishing the importance of TOGAF may actually be part of The Open Group’s strategy. By doing so, they create space to strengthen market share for newly developed products and guides, such as the Digital Practitioner Guide, TOGAF Business Architecture Guide, and a series of guides.

The Open Group has also introduced several new certifications. Some cover new topics, while others still touch on areas people expect to be part of the TOGAF standard. Removing such content from the TOGAF standard suggests that The Open Group’s strategy is to diversify certifications rather than focus solely on TOGAF.

In an extreme scenario, the term “TOGAF” as a certification could gradually disappear, with content shifting toward newer, more modern‑sounding certifications. The TOGAF standard itself would no longer receive significant updates.

If you want to learn more, be sure to check the links to my other articles provided below.

Thank you for the positive feedback on the first part; feel free to share whether you agree or disagree with the main arguments of the second part in the comments.