Enterprise & Business Architecture — Why bother?.

Posted on 19/05/20 in
Insights

Introduction

Before starting down the route of defining the benefits, I should be clear on my perspective of Enterprise and Business Architecture. Put succinctly, it is the representation of an organisations operating model that can demonstrate the connectivity between the layers with the business from the Customers, the Services they use, right the way through to the infrastructure and system layers. These can be represented through different lenses and allow “key performance indicators” to be allocated to the different layers to support and assess the management of the business.

Architectures need to:

  • Evolve and be maintained to be effective
  • Be created at the right level so that they are consumable (not too granular that they are difficult to consume and not too high-level that they are meaningless)
  • Create the common language within the Enterprise
  • Have defined and understood boundaries
  • Be proportionate to the size & complexity of the organisation

Benefits

Common Language

Value Chain

  • Opportunities to improve the Value Chain
  • Manage risk to prevent disruption to the Value Chain
  • Identify non-Value add activity within the organisation

Change Impact Analysis

  • Identifying what it means to your customers and your people
  • Where the risks may exist
  • Identifying potential synergy with other changes

Capability Maturity

Information Flows

  • How does it support better outcomes for your customers?
  • Is it providing the right information for to make informed decisions about the organisation
  • What are the potential failure points in the information flows?
  • Is there duplication in the flow of information?

Strategic Alignment

Decision Making & Business Performance

Product/Change Road Map & Change Prioritisation

Detailed Design

Conclusion

Business Architecture tools and techniques can be applied at different levels of an organisation to achieve benefits, even at a divisional level of a change Programme. You do not need mass adoption in the wider Enterprise at outset. You can demonstrate value on a small scale and organically grow the capability.

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