Business Architecture

The definition of a Business Architecture is a prerequisite to the definition of an Information System Architecture or Technical Architecture, when undertaking an Enterprise Architecture effort.

A Business Architecture requires understanding at some level:

- Business Vision and Mission
- Business Model
- Strategy, Objectives and Goals
- Legal Requirements and Constraints
- Marketplace Dynamics
- Business Policies
- Stakeholder Interests
- Organization Structure
- Geographical Distribution
- Decision Making Processes
- Functions (manufacturing, sales, etc)
- Roles, Competencies and Responsibilities
- Business Processes (Process Order, Bill and Invoice, etc)
- Measurement Systems (Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss, Cash Flow, etc)
- Capital and Resource Allocation

Processes are at the heart of Business Architecture, and detailed analysis therefore requires defining:

- Business Use Cases
- Collaborations and Orchestrations
- Event Flows and Traces
- State Transitions
- Material and Information Flows
- Rules and Constraints

The analysis must be performed for the current state (the baseline architecture) and the future state (target architecture) of the business. Since the future is uncertain, it may be necessary to consider more than one target state. Effective transition planning requires understanding both the current and target states.

The effort to define a Business Architecture can be very large. One way to limit the time and cost required, is to avoid completely defining the baseline, as-is architecture and focus on the target state and on areas where there is either a significant shortfall or where rapid change is anticipated.

The description of the Business Architecture barely scratches the surface. The individual activities require much more detailed descriptions in order to be useful.

More in future posts.