- By: Áine Byrne
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What can Business Architecture bring to your business?
Business Architecture offers many benefits to your business through a structured approach to strategies, IT infrastructure and operations. But the problem is there is uncertainty over what exactly constitutes Business Architecture, and how business’ can leverage its advantages. So, let’s take a look and de-mystify the practice to understand how you can effectively leverage it for a healthier company.
There’s really a hint in the name
‘Business Architecture’ is all about the ‘Business’ and the building blocks, or the ‘Architecture’, required to support the business’ success. For you, what this means is identifying the capabilities your business has or needs to have, to deliver value to your customers. We also mean the processes and the people required to deliver value to your clients. It’s important to note that what we shy away from, even though equally an important aspect, is technology (stay with me here I’ll elaborate on this comment later).
I think we can all agree what we mean when we talk about your business, but when it comes to the architecture of it, we might need to look at it in a little more detail. There are many generic definitions of ‘Architecture’ out there from ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Standard’s definition (“Systems and software engineering —Architecture Description”) to TOGAF’s definition (The Open Group Architecture Framework), however the Business Architecture Guild’s BizBok (r) definition is the one that I believe hits home when it comes to Business Architecture specifically:
“Business Architecture represents holistic, multidimensional business views of: capabilities, end-to-end value delivery, information, and organizational structure; and the relationships among these views and strategies, products, policies, initiatives, and stakeholders”.
To build on this definition, for me Business Architecture is a tool which helps apply best practices (see our blog on Best Practice here) tailored to the business need. Business Architecture creates and communicates your business’ raison d’être, it defines a common business vocabulary and enables traceability and transparency from your business’ motivation or need for change to its actual realisation.
Where does Business Architecture fit with Enterprise Architecture?
TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework), a widely used framework for developing and managing Enterprise Architecture within organisations, provides a structured methodology called the Architecture Development Method (ADM). The ADM comprises of a sequence of iterative stages, among which is the Business Architecture phase. Business Architecture plays a crucial role in defining the business aspects of a business’ architecture and actively informs and contributes to every other phase of TOGAF’s approach for developing and managing Enterprise Architecture.
At the centre of this iterative methodology is Requirements Management. Requirements Management, also continuous and iterative, serves as a keystone throughout the TOGAF ADM process and plays a crucial role throughout the architecture development process, ensuring that stakeholder needs are effectively captured, analysed, and addressed at each stage of architecture development.
I think this is a good time to come back to my throw away comment on technology and its importance when we see it as a Phase in Enterprise Architecture. Technology is an important aspect of change, it is important because it is an enabler of change. Technology should be considered as part of the ‘HOW’ rather than the ‘WHAT’, as it enables the business strategy and its execution, it enables value-driven capabilities and processes, it facilitates the flow of information, and enables and supports the people to do their job.
So what is a good Business Architecture approach?
Let’s bring this back to your company. It all starts with clearly articulating what is your Business’ motivation and its perspective. Do you know ‘WHAT’ you want your business to aspire to be, whether it’s a start-up or an established company looking to start your journey on a transformation or change initiative.
Do you have a clear vision and assertation of the desired goals and outcomes? It’s important to have this articulated as your business can clearly focus on the means or actions on how to get there. In essence this is the ‘HOW’.
One tool or technique, you can use, to help articulate this ‘WHAT’ and ‘HOW’ is Object Management Group’s (OMG) Business Motivation Model. This technique helps you to communicate the direction of the business and helps divulge business plans. It will consider your business directives and governance aspects, along with contemplating any potential impact to your business from internal and external influencers.
Only once the ‘WHAT’ is clearly articulated can your business delve into the ‘HOW’. Once a business’ critical success factors and key performance indicators (see our swivel chair effect blog) are known then it can delve into identifying what is required to deliver end-to-end value to its clients; the organisation, the people, the information, the capabilities and the establishment of processes.
So to answer the question, how can your business leverage its advantages?
Business Architecture enables multifaceted views of your business, these views include:
- organisational or people views
- business strategy or business plans
- end-to-end value delivery to its clients (AKA value stream view)
- business capability views
- business processes or information flow views
Business Architecture fosters transparency in decision-making processes and facilitates alignment by ensuring all stakeholders are on the same page. Business Architecture also helps to eliminate silos, for instance by highlighting duplicate capabilities or redundant value streams which no longer align to a business’ vision, strategy or goals.
Invariably, business architecture is linked with change, whether it’s deliberate evolution over time or unforeseen shifts. Regardless of the nature of change, there must be a method in place to thoroughly evaluate any changes to ensure their necessity and that the resulting architecture aligns with the business needs.
If this has picked your interest and you are interested to implement Business Architecture within your business, get in touch and we would be happy to talk it through.