There are a litany of built-for-purpose modeling tools that can be brought to bear on [[Enterprise Architecture]] - some of them, like [[Archi]] (the "official" [[Open Source]] tool for [[Archimate]]) are built _explicitly_ to handle EA. These tools _can_ be useful, but on the whole are not necessary at best, and actively harmful at worst. The standard Microsoft Office suite is all you really "need". > [!success] Good > - Developing a "good enough" understanding of the business & IT landscape, while also building some views that can be cleaned with minimal effort into good [[Enterprise Architecture Artifacts]] suitable for communication with the necessary audience. > - Building [[EA Landscapes]] and [[EA Designs]] may benefit from modeling > [!fail] Bad > If your best architectural thinkers are dedicated to sculpting a model of the business that will never be _used_, then you've wasted an intensely necessary resource. # List A short list of EA tools: - Visio - the worst of the MS Office Suite - [[DrawIO]] - Visio, but less crap - PowerPoint - capable of everything Visio is. - Word - for text-based EAs - [[Archi]] - Sparx Enterprise Architect - [[Cameo]] **** ## Source - [[The Practice of Enterprise Architecture]] ## Related - [[Archi]]