Top Intriguing Business & Enterprise Architecture Articles for 2020

 

How Would an Industry Reference Model Help Me?

 

   How Would an Industry Reference Model Help Me? | Cutter Consortium

Using Heat Maps to Better Drive the Rationalization of Your IT Landscape, Part II

 

https://www.cutter.com/article/using-heat-maps-better-drive-rationalization-your-it-landscape-part-ii

Using Heat Maps to Better Drive the Rationalization of Your IT Landscape

 

https://www.cutter.com/article/using-heat-maps-better-drive-rationalization-your-it-landscape

Tuning Into the IT Landscape Using Business Capability Modeling

 

https://www.cutter.com/article/considering-it-rationalization-through-business-capability-modeling-approach

What does developing an IT Strategy mean?

I have observed many situations where a c-level person was supposed to document an IT Strategy in a short period of time in order to prepare the following year's annual budget. Very often lacking much supporting documented business information the result is a weak strategy, sometimes ignored by the user's community, the key stakeholders.

A weak IT strategy can be costly and wasteful, especially for resource-constrained organizations that operate with minimal budget, tools, knowledge and people.  It also implies that organizations cannot respond to changing business requirements rapidly enough. The absence of strategic anticipation causes organizations to be inefficiently reactive, forcing them to work in a constant state of catch-up.

An IT Strategy should answer the following questions:

• Are we doing the right things with technology to address the organization’s most important business priorities and continuously deliver value to the clients?
• Are we making the right technology investments?
• Do we measure what is the real value to the organization derived from that technology?
• Is our current Information Technology agile enough; flexible to continuously support a successful organization?
• Is our Information Technology environment properly managed, maintained, secured, able to support the clients, and is it cost effective?
• Can our strategy support current and future business needs?

Quite often the first thing we should consider when writing such a document is the targeted audience and its content. Different people with varying roles and responsibilities may read an IT Strategy within a company, so the document may need to serve several different purposes. It is not easy to pitch a strategy to different levels in the hierarchy within an organization, and at the appropriate level of detail. Sometimes it is too detailed and does not always match the stakeholder’s needs.

An IT Strategy is an iterative process to align IT capabilities with the business strategy and requirements:

• It is a documented and approved process (part of the organization’s governance framework)
• It is iterative (it needs to be frequently be revisited). Traditionally, IT strategies are updated and communicated on an annual basis, usually to meet budget cycles. This should be considered the minimum review period. If an emerging technology surfaces that has the potential to enhance the business, it should be investigated and communicated to the business as soon as possible. A one-year cycle may be too late.
• It is a strong alignment of business and IT capabilities rather than designing IT solutions to support business requirements
  • Assuming that both business and IT capabilities drive each other
  • Assuming that business drives IT and not the other way around
• The IT Strategy sets future direction for IT function in the organization
  • Ensuring that the IT budget is spent on value creation activities for the business
  • Creating shareholder value
  • Helping to maximize the return on IT investments
• The IT Strategy may include sub-elements such as:
  • Infrastructure strategy
  • Application strategy
  • Integration strategy
  • Service strategy
  • Sourcing strategy
  • Innovation strategy

This pyramid diagram can be used to illustrate the IT strategy and vision, and how the technology and business strategies are totally aligned. At the top of the pyramid is the enterprise overarching vision. Aligned below that is how IT supports the vision by becoming a premier IT organization in creating competitive advantage for the clients. The IT vision is in turn supported by three pillars: integration, improvement, and innovation.





To deliver this , the business strategy should clearly be articulated and documented taking into account some IT aspects. There are different ways of gathering these business inputs.
The first approach is a very classical one where you develop a questionnaire in business terms which asks each business unit to identify their future requirements for infrastructure growth, taking into account capacity and availability requirements. This extracts the data you need for business driven strategy.

This questionnaire may include some of the following examples of questions:

1. What are your top 5 business “pain” points? These are things that you wish you had a solution for
2. What are your top 5 business objectives? These can be short term or long term, can be driven by revenue, cost, time, time to market, competitive advantage, risk or various other reasons
3. How do you plan to achieve these objectives?
4. What will we gain by leveraging IT Capabilities across the business?
5. What is in the way of achieving your business imperatives?
6. Can IT help achieve your business imperatives?
7. How much do you spend on IT capabilities?
8. What is your technology ROI?
9. Does your company have a plan for technology?
10. Does your business plan include a technology plan?
11. Where is IT being used across your business unit?

The second approach would be the use of Enterprise Architecture that I will explain later on.

With this input you may now start to consider the structure of your document. It may look similar to this example below: An executive summary

• An introduction
  • The purpose
  • The background
  • The Business drivers
  • The Organizational drivers
  • The IT drivers
• The Business and IT aspects
  • The Business Goals and Objectives
  • The IT approaches and principles
• The IT components
  • Business application systems
  • IT infrastructure
  • Security and IT Service continuity
• Structure, organization and management
  • IT Governance
  • Skills, knowledge and education
  • IT Financial management
  • KPIS, measurement and metrics, balance scorecards
• Technologies opportunities
• Key issues

And this is where Enterprise Architecture may have to play an important and even crucial role. Some companies I have encountered have an Enterprise Architecture team, and in parallel, somebody called an IT Strategist. Frequently the connection is non-existing or quite weak. Other organizations may also have a Strategic Planning unit, again without any connection with the Enterprise Architecture team.

An Enterprise Architecture must play the important role of assessing; existing IT assets, architecture standards and the desired business strategy to create a unified enterprise-wide environment - where the core hardware and software systems are standardised and integrated across the entire organisation’s business processes, to greatly enhance competitive advantage and innovation. The IT Strategy details the technologies, application and the data foundation needed to deliver the goals of the corporate strategy, while Enterprise Architecture is the bridge between strategy and execution; providing the organising logic to ensure the integration and standardisation of key processes that drive greater agility, higher profitability, faster time to market, lower IT costs, improved access to shared customer data and lower risk of mission-critical systems failures.

As a real example, TOGAF 9 is perfect way to produce that IT Strategy document during the Phase F: Migration Planning.

Below you will find the relationship between some phases of the ADM and the structure of the above document. It needs to be said that we should probably use a Strategic architecture level to deliver a first version of the document, which then could be reviewed with Segment or Capability architectures.

Content		Examples	Enterprise Architecture and TOGAF
An executive summary
An introduction (This document must be business oriented)
Content		Examples	Enterprise Architecture and TOGAF
	The purpose	Key elements of the scope, audience, time horizon	The Preliminary phase is about defining ‘‘where, what, why, who, and how” Enterprise Architecture will be done and will provide all information. It also creates the conditions and context for an Architecture Capability
	The background	Business problems, constraints (financial, resources, IT, legal, etc.)	This is covered by the Phase A: Architecture Vision. An Architecture Vision sets stage for each iteration of ADM cycle. -Provides high-level, aspirational view of target the sponsor uses to describe how business goals are met and stakeholder concerns are addressed -Provides an executive summary version of full Architecture -Drives consensus on desired outcome The Business Scenarios is used to discover and document business requirements, identify constraints, etc.
	The Business drivers	Market conditions, competition, consumer trends, new customers, products sales, costs savings, incremental services revenues, drivers related to the IT function	In the Phase A: Architecture Vision, we: Identify business goals and strategic drivers -Ensure that descriptions used are current -Clarify any areas of ambiguity Define constraints -Enterprise-wide constraints -Architecture project-specific constraints
	The Organizational drivers	Profitability, financial performance, change in strategic objectives, end of the product development life cycle, mergers and acquisitions, staffs, risks
	The IT drivers	New or obsolete technologies, updates	Considering that IT is part of the Business, these drivers should also be considered in that phase
The Business and IT aspects
	The Business Goals and Objectives	Market growth, entering new markets, addressing manufacturing capacities	In the Phase A: Architecture Vision, we: Identify business goals and strategic drivers -Ensure that descriptions used are current -Clarify any areas of ambiguity -Define constraints -Enterprise-wide constraints -Architecture project-specific constraints
	The IT approaches and principles	IT standards, development, implementation, delivery, testing, consolidation, maturity, best practices	Standards should be documented in the SIB (Standard Information Base) When we define the Architecture Governance Framework during the Preliminary Phase, we identy the various touch points with existing other frameworks in the organization IT principles should have already have been defined by the IT department
The IT components
	Business application systems	Baseline (main applications: ERP, CRM, customers facing systems). Future plans, concerns, time period, priorities)	This will be addressed by Phase C: Information Systems based on the Statement of Architecture Work, output from the Phase A
	IT infrastructure	Baseline (servers, network , middleware, technical services)	This will be addressed by Phase D: Technology Architecture based on the Statement of Architecture Work, output from the Phase A
	Security and IT Service continuity	Issues, challenges, opportunities related to security, security principles, controls	Security concerns are addressed during all phases of the ADM
Structure, organization and management
	IT Governance	Best practices, frameworks, management and monitoring, resource management, portfolio management, vendors management, IT service management, project management, etc.	IT Governance will be considered when the Architecture Governance Framework is defined. There will obviously be touch points between the ADM and some other best practices used by the organization. IT Governance is defined outside of the Enterprise Architecture programme
	Skills, knowledge and education	Skills, knowledge and education	Enterprise Architecture skills will have to be addressed by the Architecture Capability Framework. Other skills may also be identified independently of the Enterprise Architecture programme
	IT Financial management	IT budget, costs structures, measurement and metrics, targets, areas needing investments, etc.	This is addressed is outside of the Enterprise Architecture programme
	KPIS, measurement and metrics, balance scorecards	IT performance measurements on SMART objectives ((Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, & Time bound)	Every governance frameworks may have its own KPIs. Enterprise Architecture KPIs may be added to that list.
Technologies opportunities		Emerging technologies, business related benefits	This can be done in parallel of the Enterprise Architecture programme
Key issues and initiatives		Summary or link to the IT Project portfolio	This can be done in parallel of the Enterprise Architecture programme

Color legend
	Direct relationship with Enterprise Architecture
	Indirect relationship with Enterprise Architecture
	Produced somewhere else

The next step would be the review of the IT Strategy document by the main stakeholders who would accept or reject technology opportunities. This could also be used as an important source of information for the Strategic Planning exercise (please refer to another post for additional information: “How Strategic Planning relates to Enterprise Architecture? “).

Once the IT Strategy has been reviewed, amended and authorised (which should in reality already be approved, as it is the result of various ADM cycles and the output of Phase F: Migration planning), the multi-disciplinary programme team for the implementation during Phase G: Implementation Governance, will deliver the solutions to the business.

As already mentioned previously, the outline strategies will be refined and expanded with a low level of detail when addressing Segment and Capability architectures. This is the part that meets the first challenge described above, where we need different levels of detail for different stakeholders. The documents should be hierarchical, with the ability to drill down to lower levels as more detail is required.

One of the main reasons for developing an Enterprise Architecture with TOGAF 9 is to support the business by providing the fundamental technology and process structure for an IT Strategy. Enterprise Architecture is the superset that represents both Business and IT Strategy; this is reflected in Enterprise Architecture’s basic structure of strategy, business architecture and technology/information architecture. One can certainly do an IT Strategy without Enterprise Architecture, but Enterprise Architecture cannot be done without an IT Strategy; the same would apply to business strategy/business architecture.

Are Business Process Management and Business Architecture a perfect match?

Whenever I suggest collaboration between these two worlds, I always observe some sort of astonishment from my interlocutors. Many Enterprise Architects or Business Architects do not realise there may be synergies. Business Process Management (BPM) team have not understood what Enterprise Architecture is all about and the other way around.... There is no a single definition of Business Process Management, often it means different things to different people. To keep it very generic, BPM relates to any activities an organization does to support its process efforts.


There are many activities which can be included in such efforts:
· The use of industry Business Reference Model (or Business Process Reference Model), a reference for the operational activities of an organization, a framework facilitating a functional Lines of Business, such as

o The Federal Enterprise Architecture Business Reference Model of the US Federal Government
o The DoD Business Reference Model
o The Open Group Exploration and Mining Business Reference Model (https://www.opengroup.org/emmmv/uploads/40/22706/Getting_started_with_the_EM_Business_Model_v_01.00.pdf)
o Frameworx (eTOM) for Telco companies
o The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR®) model
o The SAP R/3 Reference Model
o The Oracle Business Models : Oracle Industry Reference Model for Banking, (IRM), Oracle Retail Reference Model
o And others...

· The use of organization specific Business Reference models
· The use of Business process improvement methodologies

o Lean, a quantitative data driven methodology based on statistics, process understanding and process control
o Six Sigma, a methodology that mainly focuses on eliminating bad products or services to clients by using statistical evaluation

· Business Process Reengineering, which in reality is a facet of BPM
· The understanding of Business Change Management, the process that empowers staff to accept changes that will improve performance and productivity
· The understanding of Business Transformation, the continuous process, essential to any organization in implementing its business strategy and achieving its vision
· The use of Business Rules Management which enables organizations to manage business rules for decision automation
· The understanding of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services to reduce costs and increase efficiency
· The support of Business Process modeling and design, which is illustrated description of business processes, usually created with flow diagrams. The model contains the relationship between activities, processes, sub-processes and information, as well as roles, the organization and resources. This can done with many notations such as flow chart, functional flow block diagram, control flow diagram, Gantt chart, PERT diagram, IDEF, and nowadays with the standard de facto notations such as UML and BPMN
· The support of BPM tools and suites implementation. With the right, process models can be simulated, to drive workflow or BPMS systems, and can be used as the basis for an automated process monitoring system (BAM)
· The support of Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), the ability to have end-to-end visibility and control over all parts of a process or transaction that spans multiple applications and people in one or even more companies.

To combine Business Process Management and Enterprise Architecture for better business outcomes is definitely the way forward, where BPM provides the business context, understanding, and- metrics, and Enterprise Architecture provides the discipline to translate business vision and strategy into architectural changes. Both are needed for sustainable continuous improvement. When referring to Enterprise Architecture, we would mainly refer to Business Architecture. Business Architecture involves more than just the structure of business processes. It also entails the organization of departments, roles, documents, assets, and all other process-related information.

Business Architects may be defining and implementing the Business Process framework and, in parallel, influencing the strategic direction for Business Process Management and improvement methodologies (e.g. Lean, Six Sigma). The business process owners and Business Analysts are working within their guidelines at multiple levels throughout the organizations’ business process. They have roles and responsibilities to manage, monitor and control their processes.
An important tool in developing Business Architecture is a Business Reference Model. These types of models are enormously beneficial. They can be developed in the organization to build and extend the information architecture. The shared vocabulary (verbal and visual) that emerges from these efforts promotes clear and effective communication.

To illustrate the touch points between Enterprise Architecture and Business Process Management, I have illustrated in the table below the synergies between the two approaches using TOGAF® 9.



In this table, we observe that, there is a perfect match between Business Process Management and the use of an Enterprise Architecture framework such as TOGAF. BPM is often project based and the Business Architect (or Enterprise Architect) may be responsible for identifying cross-project and cross-process capabilities. It can be considered as being the backbone of an Enterprise Architecture program. We can also add to this, that Service Oriented Architecture is the core operational or transactional capability while BPM does the coordination and integration into business processes.

When using BPM tools and suites, you should also consider the following functionalities: workflow, enterprise application integration, content management and business activity monitoring. These four components are traditionally provided by vendors as separate applications which are merged through BPM into a single application with high levels of integration. The implementation of a BPM solution should theoretically eliminate the maintenance and support cost of these four applications resulting in reducing the total cost of ownership.

Business Architecture provides the governance, alignment and transformational context for BPM across business units and silos. Enterprise Architects, Business Architects, Business Analysts should work together with BPM teams, when approaching the topic of Business Process Management. BPM efforts need structures and appropriate methodologies. It needs a structure to guide efforts at different levels of abstraction (separating “the what“ (the hierarchical structure of business functions) from “the how” (how the desired results are achieved), a documented approach and structure to navigate among the business processes of the organization, i.e. a Business Architecture. They also need a methodology such as an Enterprise Architecture framework to retain and leverage what they have learned about managing and conducting BPM projects.

Are you a Business Architect or a Business Analyst?

Enterprise Architecture domains include Business Architecture which is the first architecture domain within TOGAF 9. An Enterprise Architecture program that includes this domain, maps critical business processes to their application, information, and infrastructure components to provide a comprehensive view of the business and IT landscape that enables informed decision-making.

Business Architects are supposed to manage Business Architecture, but who are they, what are their skills? How are they different to a Business Analyst or even a Project Manager?

Business Analysts are on the way to becoming Business Architects. Sometimes called IT Business Analysts, they are not strictly business or IT specialists. They write business cases (with very few technical terms), identify business requirements and often are part of a Development Team.

Based on many job descriptions and my observation below, is a grid of standard skills and responsibilities related to the function of a Business Analyst. In the second column, are the responsibilities also applicable to a Business Architect and in the last column comments on how TOGAF 9 recommend the activities to be addressed.

Expected skills and activities	Business Analyst	Business Architect	Comments related to TOGAF 9
Is an intermediary between IT and the business users, follows the implementation strategy with respect to getting stakeholder buy-in and support.	x	x	Both roles require to be positioned between IT and business.
In particular business processes of a line of business.	x		The Business Architect considers the organization’s strategy and less focused in a specific line of business.
Acts as catalyst to implement strategic and tactical change for the business.	x	x	The Business Architect will focus more on strategic changes.
Works with end-user groups to assist with aligning IT to the department's business goals. Conduct feasibility studies to define the purpose, functions, and overall structure of business processes	x	x	The Business Architect in TOGAF 9 will use Business Scenario techniques.
May be involved in Business Process Management (BPM).	x	x
Performs analysis and documents business processes leading to process change and/or system implementation.	x	x	The Business Architect will model and process the business processes.
Operating as a more-or-less independent group that is focused on delivering BPM services	x		The Business Architect will be working at a strategic level and will be less focused on the delivery of BPM services.
Does not have an IT background, but had, instead, a background in quality control.		x	The Business Architect must have a perfect knowledge of the business.
Translates user requirements into software requirements that IT can then use to develop software	x		A Business Architect would not develop and review design specifications for software application. This would be the role of the Application Architect during Phase C.
Analyze and resolve software errors in a timely and accurate fashion	x		A Business Architect is not in charge of managing incidents linked to applications. IT operations may escalate this to the Development Team, or the vendor. Once a first level of diagnostic done, it will be transferred to one of the architects depending on the domain (technology, application).
Helps to develop and maintain software to support the business processes. Assist in developing system/application architecture.	x		The Business Architect does not contribute to software development. This is done by the Solution Architect.
Leads and validates enterprise system designs across multiple business applications.	x		The Business Architect does not lead Application Architecture. This will be done by the Application Architect and potentially the Solution Architect.
Creates and executes test plans to ensure that the functional and business requirements are met by the proposed solution	x		The Business Architect does not contribute to test plans. This is done probably by the Solution Architect.
Documents and defines processes, eliminating activities that don't add value and straightening out the flow of the activities.	x	x	In the TOGAF 9 Phase B we would do this by documenting the baseline and target architecture and do a gap analysis, identifying the various business architecture building blocks to be eliminated.
Determining how business policies are implemented in business rules.	x	x	Business rules have to be identified and implemented when business processes documented in both baseline and target architecture. Can be done at both strategic and tactical level.
Analyses customer needs and the processes customers go through to interact with an organization are key skills that any business process practitioner needs to be effective.	x	x	Business scenarios would be used to identify business requirements.
Creates, manages and maintains an optimum business architecture that includes informational, organizational, process, performance and systems architecture.		x	The Business Analyst focus more on projects delivery. The Business Architect is mostly focused on the delivery of the Business Architecture.
Defines, socializes and implements Business Architecture. Reviews roadmap projects for impact and compliance.		x	Business Architecture roadmaps will be delivered from the gap analysis.
Identifies and facilitates cross divisional continuous business improvement initiatives.		x	The Business Architect works at a strategic level and focus mostly on Strategic Architecture.
Member of the Architecture Board, composed of representative process owners who approve any cross organizational business process changes.	x		Business Architects should be part of the Architecture Board.
Identifies and maintains an up to date picture of opportunities and risks.	x	x	Risks have to be identified during both the Architecture vision phase and the development of the solution.
Experienced in business/process architecture including broad skills in the area of strategy mapping, business analysis skills, conceptual data and process modeling/design, EA frameworks.		x	The Business Architect must have these skills. The Business Analyst may focus on process modeling only.
Strong work experience in Project and Change management.	x	x	Both roles require these skills.
Proven track record for working effectively with technical and business functions.		x	The Business Architect must work with other domain's architects.

My observations are:

Business Analysts are much closer to IT. They often are assigned to a specific Line of Business, which is close to the Development Team, and are implicated in software development. They may be part of the Development Team or the Project Management Office. The Business Architect reports to managers or senior managers who may be business or IT but are independent of any project. They have a global view on most business and will be responsible for modeling the business as a whole, then working top down to "architect" encompassing end to end business processes. Their role is more horizontal and is considered a neutral voice and because of that will make more critical decisions than a Business Analyst.

Business Analysts document requirements as defined by users during workshops. A Business Architect documents and may contribute to define a business strategy using requirements provided by the users if that strategy is not finalized. The Business Architect must have the ability to think in both a strategic and tactical manner whereas a Business Analyst is normally tactical.

The Business Analyst operates within the confines of a predetermined application and technology architecture. A Business Architect is a part of the decision making process to define the IT architecture (Data, Application and Technology). He will have a strong influence directing information technology to meet business needs, and assist in identifying business inefficiencies and opportunities.

Business Architect must be cognizant of enterprise strategies whereas a Business Analyst is normally concerned with specific projects independent of enterprise strategy.