Activity:  Define the Business Architecture

This activity is only adding value if you are doing business modeling in order to engineer your business. If you are only building a chart of an existing organization in order to derive system requirements, architecting the business is not necessary. See also Concepts: Scope of Business Modeling. 

Develop an Overview of the Business Architecture

The business architecture overview is created early in the lifecycle of a project, possibly as early as the proposal. It is often in graphical form, using some informal notation or story-boarding technique. It represents the intent and idea behind a business modeling effort. It is produced by the lead business-process analyst, often in collaboration with the project sponsor. The overview graph should indicate major elements of the business and its surrounding such as teams, business tools, and external sources of influence (regulatory bodies, partners, market segments). 

At this point the business architecture overview is a provisional first pass. No commitments should be based on this overview diagram.

The initial overview graph may or may not be included as part of the Business Architecture Document, depending on what value it adds to the content.

Prioritize Business Processes

Determine which business processes are most critical to explore in order to achieve the goals presented in the Business Vision. Look for business use cases or business scenarios from the outlined business use-case model (in Activity: Find Business Actors and Use Cases) that represent some significant, central capability of the of the target organization, or have a large architectural coverage - they exercise many architectural elements, or if they stress or illustrate a specific, delicate point of the business architecture.

The prioritized business processes or business scenarios should be documented in the business use-case view of the Business Architecture Document. See also Guidelines: Business Architecture Document, the section on business process view. 

Outline the High-Level Organization

Identify the high-level groupings that will constitute the organization. This can be departments, divisions, or business units, somewhat depending on what terminology your organization uses. These high-level groupings are your initial set of organization units in the business object model.

For key interfaces towards customers and where appropriate between organization units, identify which are the primary business workers and business entities involved. 

Consider the scope of the project as defined in the Business Vision. There is no point in exploring details of parts of the organization that are out of scope. See also Concepts: Modeling Large Organizations. 

The sketches to a high-level organization should be included in the organization structure view of the Business Architecture Document. See also Guidelines: Business Architecture Document, the section on organization structure view. 

Outline Prioritized Process Realizations

Identify which business workers and business entities participate in the execution of each prioritized business use case. They form the business use-case realization of the business use case. 

The sketches to process realizations should be included in the organization structure view of the Business Architecture Document. See also Guidelines: Business Architecture Document, the section on organization structure view. 

Define Culture View

Defining the culture view includes the following:

• Determine the characteristics of the culture. 
• Determine which of these characteristics are key to the organization and are necessary to leave undisturbed. 
• Discuss what should change. 
• Determine what mechanisms are in place to maintain and encourage the culture. Discuss ideas to new or change mechanisms
• Define a path to be taken to introduce any changes you determine to be necessary. 

The results of this step should be documented in the culture view of the Business Architecture Document. See also Guidelines: Business Architecture Document, the section on culture view. 

Define Human Resource Aspect View

Defining the human resource aspect view includes the following:

• Discuss education needs. There is a need to define both the long-term training program each new employee should have, as well as any initial training needs when introducing new business processes. 
• Define any mechanisms (reward structures, trainee programs, mentor programs, or other incentives) that need to be put in place to enhance skill levels. 
• Explore what needs there are to change location of individuals in the organization, based on changes in responsibilities or any needs to enhance communication. 

The results of this step should be documented in the human resource aspects view of the Business Architecture Document. See also Guidelines: Business Architecture Document, the section on human resource aspect view. 

Evaluate Your Results

You should check the Business Architecture Document verify that your work is on track. See Checkpoints: Business Architecture Document. 

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