Articles

Deploying Business Strategy through Business Architecture

Author(s):

William Ulrich

President, TSG, Inc.

At the recent Business Architecture Innovation Summit in Reston, VA, one of the main challenges cited by attendees was the difficulty of aligning their business architecture with business strategy. While strategy mapping has historically been viewed as a standalone discipline, business architecture views strategy mapping as an integral component. Making your strategy actionable requires formalizing that strategy and aligning it to business architecture components that include capability, organization, value, information and initiatives. This article discusses strategy mapping frameworks and how to align those frameworks with related business architecture components to further prioritization, budgeting, portfolio planning and deployment.

Before we discuss how strategy mapping is incorporated into business architecture, let’s review a sampling of commonly used strategy mapping frameworks.

Five Ways for the Business Analyst to Score in BPM

Author(s):

Shelley Sweet

Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and President, i4 Process

Business Analysts provide a critical role in organizations. In fact, without this role, Business Owners and Developers must work together on a software project, which can be frustrating to both sides. Indeed, Business Owners may not get what they want and Developers may spend time building functionality that was not needed. OUCH! Why is that? Because the Business Owners and Developers have not learned to communicate to their mutual benefit. Enter the Business Analyst whose role is to define the needs and recommend solutions that deliver value to the stakeholders (e.g., Business Owners, users, customers, etc.)

According to the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) BA’s do the following

Process Centric Enterprise Architecture: Towards an Agile Enterprise and Architecture

Author(s):

Gerhard Basson

Process Architect, Old Mutual plc

We live in a process powered world and the only thing the customer is interested in is WIFM (What’s in-it for me?). Customers are tired of hearing phrases such as “customer centric” and “world class” and “service oriented”. If your process outcomes are not aligned to the customer’s goals and you do not provide an excellent service (note: not a superior product) – guess what?

How does this affect Enterprise Architecture?

If an organisation doesn’t change its way of developing products for more than 40 years, do we expect that organisation to stay in business for very much longer?

Rules, Decisions and… Standards?

Author(s):

Brian Stucky

Managing Director, Business Decision Management, Allegiance Advisory Group

While pondering the difficulties still faced by enterprises employing a business rule management system (BRMS) and attempting to fully enable business users, I see yet another wave of standards coming our way. Standards for rules have been attempted in a variety of ways over the years. Each attempt provided some valuable insight but none really answered the call. This got me to thinking about the how far the field has come in terms of approach and execution but not in terms of standardization.

I have been fortunate to be involved with rules long enough to see a tremendous evolution in how the technologies are labeled, presented, integrated, and ultimately utilized. We have truly seen a sweeping move across the spectrum from purely academic research platforms to a boutique niche technology to its current place as a mainstream part of everyday business.

Why Business Architects Should Operate Outside EA

Author(s):

Drew Guitarte

Enterprise Business Architect, Wells Fargo & Company

I’d like to make the case why business architects should operate outside of enterprise architecture (EA).

First, business architects are “big thinkers” and more business savvy than their EA counterparts. Their cultures clash. No matter how much EAs cast themselves as strategic thinkers, trusted advisors, or business partners there still seems a stigma that EA is only all about IT. This stigma stuck for decades and may help explain why IT-oriented EAs attracted only their kind. Meanwhile, recent converts to business architecture possess a distinct left- and right-brained aptitude for stating holistic viewpoints that are rigorous, well-understood, and fact-based. Some of them are ex-product managers, ex-business analysts, ex-sales, ex-entrepreneur, or simply ex-EAs or ex-IT pros who recently earned their MBAs and a light bulb went on, so to speak.

Business Politics Before Projects Success: The Games Executives Play

Author(s):

Imtiaz Abdul Kader

Head Core Banking PMO, Standard Bank Group

Business Politics, Organisational Politics, Workplace Politics, irrespective of what noun you place in front of the word “Politics”, an association can be drawn that there will be some decisions taken within organisations that are based on robust debates that are based on biased agenda’s and contrasting behaviours and personalities. Belsky G and Gilovich T in their book, “Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes”, infers that it is human nature to make decisions based on our personalities, self-motivated objectives, ego’s, peer pressure, fear and regret irrespective of the irrationality of the outcome. The inference can be generalised against any decisions we as individuals need to make and is supported by Belsky G and Gilovich T when they succeeded statements made in their book with, “financial and or otherwise”.

BPM Competence: Are We There Yet?

Author(s):

Andrew Spanyi

Faculty Member, DBizInstitute.org and Managing Director, Spanyi International

Industry analysts such as Gartner have estimated that the size of the BPM market was well over $2.0 billion in 2011 and some industry observers believe that the global market for BPM will surpass $5 billion by 2017. However, a rapid increase in the size of the global BPM market does not necessarily mean that companies are getting the best value out of BPM. Accordingly, some senior managers are asking the very same question that parents going on a long drive with small children typically hear, which is – “Are we there yet?”

Neuroscience Sheds New Light on Change Management Strategies

Author(s):

Deborah Turturici

President - Sr. Business Enterprise Architect, Ability-Alliance Group, LLC.

Neuroscience articles are becoming common when looking for new changes in organization change management methods. These articles shed new light on how organizational change strategy and the approaches being use may need to be modified. Some current change management methods may be causing more harm than good during change efforts. Learning about neuroscience will shed a new reality on change challenges and change management practices used today.

The Importance of Being Earnest – About Enterprise Governance

Author(s):

Ken Mullins

Senior Principal, MITRE Corporation

If the purpose of Government is to serve the needs of the public, as many agree, the main objective of Governance is to ensure that public needs are efficiently, effectively and impartially served.

Governance mechanisms can help to achieve that objective by providing well-defined processes and structures for all aspects of procuring, deploying, and managing the use of government resources. A recent study by the World Bank found a strong relationship between good Governance and good Government performance. Other studies have revealed similar findings[1]. The purpose of this article is to underscore the need for investing adequate resources in (and leadership of) an agency’s Governance processes.

Business Architecture Takes Major Steps Toward Maturation

Author(s):

William Ulrich

President, TSG, Inc.

A year ago, I wrote a BA Bulletin article entitled “A Business Architecture Body of Knowledge.” In that article we examined the grassroots evolution of a body of knowledge and early signs of adoption. We spoke of selected success stories, business architecture as a worldwide phenomenon, the move towards business-driven business architecture and initial automation efforts. That article also discussed the rollout of release 1.0 of “A Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge” (BIZBOK™).[1] Since that time, business architecture has matured as a discipline and in practice, moving beyond simplistic discussions that were commonplace just a couple of years ago.

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