Infrastructure & Tools comprise the resources and technologies, and their interrelated patterns, required to perform or execute the business processes and methods. When combined with processes & methods, and community, this element fills out what the organization needs to accomplish its mission.

A simple example shows the relationship of Infrastructure & Tools to the rest of the Architecture.

If the Guiding Ideas of the organization includes the mission to build houses, it engages in the Processes & Methods of house building. To do this the organization must incorporate a Community of people with an interest in, and the skills to, build houses. To this mix it must add the Infrastructure & Tools of land, tools, and equipment needed for house building.

This simple example, however, does not give a sense of the complexity of the organizational Infrastructure & Tools. This element includes a number of components that are either overlooked as a part of the organizational structure or are not recognized because of their intangible nature.

You should understand that infrastructure incorporates more than tangible resources. Infrastructure also includes the mental models of individuals and the paradigms of groups.