Business Architecture: The Missing Link Between Business .

BPTrends February 2010Business Architecture: The Missing LinkBusiness Architecture: The Missing Link betweenBusiness Strategy and Enterprise ArchitectureSOA Consortium EA2010 Working GroupExecutive SummaryThe SOA Consortium’s EA2010 Working Group – a group of “street-smart” enterprise architecturepractitioners – has been actively discussing the domains, services, practices, and skills requiredfor a thriving, business relevant enterprise architecture practice in the 2010s.A critical finding of these discussions is the emphasis on technology concerns at the expense ofbusiness understanding and, ultimately, true business enablement, in most enterprisearchitecture practices today. Successful enterprise architecture practices in the 2010s must giveequal emphasis to technology and business concerns. The means for this re-balancing is theelevation, and, in some cases, initial adoption, of business architecture practices.We define business architecture as the formal representation and active management ofbusiness design. Expanding this definition, business architecture is a formalized collection ofpractices, information, and tools for business professionals to assess and implement businessdesign and business change.Typically, the business architecture practices and artifacts in enterprise architecture frameworksfocus on business processes and business uses cases. This is not surprising since these artifactsand practices are a prerequisite to IT-based business solution delivery. However, this is notsufficient.To reap the benefits of business architecture – business visibility and agility – the businessarchitecture must reflect the entire business design from the point of view of business designersand owners, rather than IT solution delivery. This point of view begins with business motivations,includes key business execution elements such as operating model, capabilities, value chains,processes, and organizational models, and transcends information technology representations,such as business services, rules, events, and information models.While we strongly believe that business architecture is a business domain, the Chief InformationOfficer (CIO), given his/her unique position to view business plans, business processes,information flows, and technology portfolios across the organization, most often championsbusiness architecture formalization.For business architecture to succeed, the CIO and enterprise architecture group must take anhonest look at the existing relationship between business and IT. The nature of the relationship –disenfranchised, customer-supplier, or collaborative – will dictate the level of effort required to findsponsorship, garner business participation, and deliver to objectives.Once in place, the relationship between business architecture and information technology is twofold. First, business architecture is a critical input to IT planning, technology architecture, andbusiness solution delivery. Second, technology trends and IT capabilities influence businessdesign choices in the realms of capabilities, value chains, processes, and channels.The interdependencies of business architecture and information technology call for collaborativepractices and organizational models. This connection is best structured as a true enterprisearchitecture practice, one that gives equal emphasis to business and technology concerns. Thisbalanced model is our view of enterprise architecture in the 2010s.Copyright 2010 OMG. All Rights Reserved.www.bptrends.com1

BPTrends February 2010Business Architecture: The Missing LinkIntroductionThe SOA Consortium’s EA2010 Working Group – a group of “street-smart” enterprise architecturepractitioners – has been actively discussing the domains, services, practices, and skills requiredfor a thriving, business relevant enterprise architecture practice in the 2010s.The major domains we identified are technology architecture, business architecture, projectsalignment, delivery, operations and measurement, and governance and enterprise architecturemanagement.Although all are critical to enterprise architecture success, the team chose to focus on businessarchitecture because of the close ties to business-driven SOA success.By “business-driven SOA,” we mean three things:1. Creating a portfolio of services that represent capabilities offered by, or required of,your organization. Those capabilities may represent business, information, or technologyconcepts.2. Composing or orchestrating those services along with events, rules, and policies intobusiness processes and solutions that fulfill business scenarios.3. Working towards a business outcome. That “business outcome” could be cost andcomplexity reduction via a rationalized IT portfolio. In other words, “business-driven”doesn’t require a business person tapping you on the shoulder; it means executing forbusiness reasons.As a starting point, the team needed to agree on a definition of business architecture. We definedbusiness architecture as the formal representation and active management of business design.Expanding this definition, business architecture is a formalized collection of practices, information,and tools for business professionals to assess and implement business design and businesschange.As stated above, the relationship between business architecture and information technology istwo-fold. First, business architecture is a critical input to IT planning, technology architecture, andbusiness solution delivery. Second, technology trends and IT capabilities influence businessdesign choices in the realms of capabilities, value chains, processes, and channels.Figure 1. The Relationships between Business Architecture and Information TechnologyCopyright 2010 OMG. All Rights Reserved.www.bptrends.com2

BPTrends February 2010Business Architecture: The Missing LinkThe interdependencies of business architecture and information technology call for collaborativepractices and organizational models. This connection is best structured as a true enterprisearchitecture practice, one that gives equal emphasis to business and technology concerns. Manyenterprise architecture initiatives today do not have a balanced approach, and technology viewsdominate the perspective. The balanced model is our view of enterprise architecture in the 2010s.Figure 2. A Balanced Enterprise Architecture PracticeWe recognize that our view is just that, our view. We welcome feedback – real-world experiences,and tips from fellow practitioners. Please see the summary on page 13 for details on how toparticipate in the discussion.Given the historical emphasis on the technology side of enterprise architecture, this discussionoriented paper delves into the business architecture aspect, sharing the team’s findings on thefollowing questions: What comprises business architecture? What is the purpose? Who participates? How do you make business architecture accessible? How does business architecture facilitate business decision-making and change? How do you keep business architecture current?Before delving into our business architecture findings, we offer some enterprise architecturecontext.Enterprise Architecture ContextOver the years, IT has accumulated many types of architectural domains and correspondingarchitecture disciplines to address each domain; e.g., IT has application architecture,infrastructure architecture, security architecture, information architecture, and more. Enterprisearchitecture has been broadly defined to encompass all of these architectural domains.Depending on which expert you ask, the area of enterprise architecture may include, use, oroverlap with the newest architecture discipline: business architecture.Most would agree that the field of enterprise architecture was officially established in 1987, withthe development of the Zachman Frameworki. Since then, various IT standards bodies,government agencies, industry analyst groups, and enterprise practitioners have defined andrefined enterprise architecture. Three widely recognized definitions are from The Open Group’sArchitecture Framework (TOGAF)ii, the United States General Accounting Office (GAO)iii, and theMIT Sloan Center for Information System Research (CISR)iv.Copyright 2010 OMG. All Rights Reserved.www.bptrends.com3

BPTrends February 2010Business Architecture: The Missing LinkTOGAF describes enterprise architecture’s purpose as supporting the business “by providing thefundamental technology and process structure for an IT strategy.” The GAO defines EA as “ablueprint that describes an organization’s or a functional area’s current and desired state in bothlogical and technical terms, as well as a plan for transitioning between the two states.” MIT’sCISR defines EA as “the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflectingthe integration and standardization requirements of the firm’s operating model.” While the wordingvaries, the underlying common themes area) enterprise architecture exists to optimize and align IT resources with businessgoals/objectives,b) enterprise architecture is manifested as a set of inter-related models, andc) these models are characterized using a prescriptive metamodel, such as Zachman’soriginal work or one of CISR’s four operating modelsv.For an IT organization to thrive, and for an EA program to succeed, it must understand thebusiness it supports. Thus, EA frameworks and definitions, including the above three, incorporatesome form of business architecture.Figure 3. Business Processes and Use Cases are IT PrerequisitesTypically, the business architecture practices and artifacts in enterprise architecture frameworksfocus on business processes and business uses cases. This is not surprising, since theseartifacts and practices are a prerequisite to IT-based business solution delivery.However, this is not sufficient. To reap the benefits of business architecture – business visibilityand agility – the business architecture must reflect the entire business design from the point ofview of business designers and owners, rather than IT solution delivery.Business Architecture OverviewWhat is Business Architecture?The EA2010 working group defines business architecture as the formal representation and activemanagement of business design. Expanding this definition, business architecture is a formalizedcollection of practices, information, and tools for business professionals to assess and implementbusiness design and business change.Business Design. Business architecture must encompass the entire business design from thebusiness designers’ and owners’ points of view. This begins with business motivations, includeskey business execution elements – such as operating model, capabilities, value chains,processes, and organizational models – and transcends information technology representations,such as business services, rules, events, and information models.Solely by the fact that they exist, all businesses have a business design. That design may beintended, explicit, and effective, or may be an implicit amalgamation of past actions andunderperforming. Business architecture is the formal representation of business design, with theCopyright 2010 OMG. All Rights Reserved.www.bptrends.com4