One of the things I appreciate with TOGAF, is the initial step of defining a clear set of architectual principles. My direct experience from a large EA program where principles were missing was that technical discusion could not be solved using a common ground of reasoning. Good principles help us solve issues by giving us something to solve arguments within the EA team. Principles becomes especially useful when there are few of them (maximum 10), they are clear and practical, and they have a clear order of precedence.

Yet writing good principles are hard, much harder than you think at first glance.

I would like to ask the community;

- What is your throughs on the usefulness of architectual principles?

- How do you go around defining them / deciding which ones have priority?

- What are your favorite principles?