John A. Zachman (born December 16, 1934) is an American business and
IT consultant
In management, information technology consulting (also called IT consulting, computer consultancy, business and technology services, computing consultancy, technology consulting, and IT advisory) is a field of activity which focuses on advising or ...
,
[Elizabeth N. Fong and Alan H. Goldfine (1989) ''Information Management Directions: The Integration Challenge''. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 500-167, September 1989. p.63] early pioneer of
enterprise architecture, chief executive officer of Zachman International
Zachman.com, and originator of the
Zachman Framework
The Zachman Framework is an enterprise ontology and is a fundamental structure for enterprise architecture which provides a formal and structured way of viewing and defining an enterprise. The ontology is a two dimensional classification schem ...
.
Biography
Zachman holds a degree in
Chemistry from
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Chart ...
. He served for a number of years as a line officer in the United States Navy, and is a retired Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve.
[John A. Zachman Biographical Sketch](_blank)
Accessed 15 Dec 2008.
He joined
IBM Corporation in 1964 and held various
marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to empha ...
-related positions in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. He became involved with Strategic Information Planning methodologies in 1970.
[Judith J. Newton, Frankie E. Spielman (1990). ''Data Administration: Standards & Techniques''. p.18.] and in 1973 he was assigned responsibility for the
Business Systems Planning (BSP) program in IBM’s Western Region. In 1984 he began to concentrate on
information systems architecture. In 1989 at IBM he joined the
CASE Support organization of the Application Enabling Marketing Center, where he worked as a consultant in areas of
information systems planning
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
and
enterprise architecture.
He retired at IBM in 1990, having served them for 26 years. Afterwards he co-founded, with Samuel B. Holcman, the Zachman Institute for Framework Advancement, which was discontinued in December 2008.
He is a Fellow for the College of Business Administration of the
University of North Texas
The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 years later."Denton Normal Schoo ...
. He serves on the Advisory Board for Boston University’s Institute for Leading in a Dynamic Economy (BUILDE), the Advisory Board for the Data Resource Management Program at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...
and the Advisory Board of the
Data Administration Management Association International (DAMA-I).

In May 2002 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Advisory Board of the Data Administration Management Association International. He was awarded the 2004
Oakland University, Applied Technology in Business (ATIB), Award for IS Excellence and Innovation.
Work
John Zachman is one of the founding developers of IBM's
Business Systems Planning (BSP), and worked on their Executive team planning techniques (Intensive Planning). In 1987 he originated the
Zachman Framework
The Zachman Framework is an enterprise ontology and is a fundamental structure for enterprise architecture which provides a formal and structured way of viewing and defining an enterprise. The ontology is a two dimensional classification schem ...
a standard for classifying the descriptive representations (models) that comprise enterprise architecture.
Business Systems Planning
Business System Planning Business systems planning (BSP) is a method of analyzing, defining and designing the information architecture of organizations. It was introduced by IBM for internal use only in 1981, although initial work on BSP began during the early 1970s. BSP w ...
(BSP) is a method for analyzing, defining and designing an
information architecture
Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emergin ...
of organizations. It was first issued by
IBM in 1981, though the initial work on BSP began in the early 1970s.
[Business Systems Planning (IBM Corporation), paper 1](_blank)
Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. At first, it was for IBM internal use only. Later it was made available to customers
and this method became an important tool for many organizations. It is a very complex method dealing with
data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...
, processes, strategies, aims and organizational
departments which are interconnected.
Business Systems Planning (BSP) and
Business Information Control Study
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."
Having a business name does not separ ...
(BICS) according to Zachman (1982),
[John Zachman (1982)]
"Business Systems Planning and Business Information Control Study: A comparisment
In: ''IBM Systems Journal'', vol 21, no 3, 1982. p.31-53. are both "information system planning methodologies that specifically employ enterprise analysis techniques in the course of their analyses. Underlying the BSP and BICS analyses
are the data management problems that result from
systems design
Systems design interfaces, and data for an electronic control system to satisfy specified requirements. System design could be seen as the application of system theory to product development. There is some overlap with the disciplines of system an ...
approaches that optimize the management of technology at the expense of managing the data". The methodologies have similarities and differences, and strengths and weaknesses. The "choice between using one or the other methodology is strongly influenced by the immediate intent of the study sponsor, tempered by the limiting factors currently surrounding the BICS methodology".
Zachman Framework
The
Zachman Framework
The Zachman Framework is an enterprise ontology and is a fundamental structure for enterprise architecture which provides a formal and structured way of viewing and defining an enterprise. The ontology is a two dimensional classification schem ...
according to Zachman (2008)
is "a
schema
The word schema comes from the Greek word ('), which means ''shape'', or more generally, ''plan''. The plural is ('). In English, both ''schemas'' and ''schemata'' are used as plural forms.
Schema may refer to:
Science and technology
* SCHEMA ...
- the intersection between two historical classifications that have been in use for literally thousands of years".
* "The first is the fundamentals of communication found in the primitive interrogatives: What, How, When, Who, Where, and Why. It is the integration of answers to these questions that enables the comprehensive, composite description of complex ideas".
* "The second is derived from reification, the transformation of an abstract idea into an instantiation that was initially postulated by ancient Greek philosophers and is labeled in the Framework: Identification, Definition, Representation, Specification, Configuration and Instantiation. ..."
More specifically, the Zachman Framework is "an
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ...
- a theory of the existence of a structured set of essential components of an object for which explicit expressions is necessary and perhaps even mandatory for creating, operating, and changing the object (the object being an Enterprise, a department, a value chain, a "sliver," a solution, a project, an airplane, a building, a product, a profession of whatever)".
[''John Zachman's Concise definition of the Zachman Framework''](_blank)
John A. Zachman, ''Zachman International'', 2008
According to Zachman, "this ontology was derived from analogous structures that are found in the older disciplines of Architecture/Construction and Engineering/Manufacturing that classify and organize the design artifacts created in the process of designing and producing complex physical products (e.g. buildings or airplanes). It uses a two dimensional classification model based on the six basic interrogatives (What, How, Where, Who, When, and Why) intersecting six distinct perspectives, which relate to stakeholder groups (Planner, Owner, Designer, Builder, Implementer and Worker). The intersecting cells of the Framework correspond to models which, if documented, can provide a holistic view of the enterprise".
[Interview with John Zachman]
by Roger Sessions, Editor-in-Chief, ''Perspectives of the International Association of Software Architects''
Publications
Zachman had published three books, several articles
List of publications from the DBLP Bibliography Server. and forewords to more than a hundred books on related subjects. A selection:
* 1997. ''Data stores, data warehousing, and the Zachman Framework : managing enterprise knowledge''. With Bill Inmon and Jonathan G. Geiger. New York : McGraw-Hill.
* 2002. ''The Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture : A Primer on Enterprise Engineering and Manufacturing.''
* 2016
"The Complete Business Process Handbook, Volume 2: Extended Business Process Management
with Prof Mark von Rosing & Henrik von Scheel, et al. (Morgan Kaufmann
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is a Burlington, Massachusetts (San Francisco, California until 2008) based publisher specializing in computer science and engineering content.
Since 1984, Morgan Kaufmann has published content on information technology ...
, )
Articles:
* 1978. "The Information Systems Management System: A Framework for Planning". In: ''DATA BASE'' 9(3): pp. 8–13.
* 1982
"Business Systems Planning and Business Information Control Study: A comparisment
In: ''IBM Systems Journal'', vol 21, no 3, 1982. p. 31-53.
* 1987
"A Framework for Information Systems Architecture"
In: ''IBM Systems Journal'', vol. 26, no. 3, 1987. IBM Publication G321-5298.
* 1992
"Extending and Formalizing the Framework for Information Systems Architecture"
with John F. Sowa In: ''IBM Systems Journal'', Vol 31, no.3, 1992. p. 590-616
* 2007
"Architecture Is Architecture Is Architecture"
Paper Zachman International
version).
References
External links
John Zachman
at zachman.com.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zachman, John
1934 births
Living people
American computer scientists
Enterprise modelling experts
Information systems researchers
IBM employees