.4 Strategy Analysis
Business architecture can play a significant role in strategy analysis. It provides architectural views into the current state of the organization and helps to define both the future state and the transition states required to achieve the future state.
Business architects develop roadmaps based on the organization’s change strategy. Clearly defined transition states help ensure that the organization continues to deliver value and remain competitive throughout all the phases of the change. To keep competitive, the business must analyze such factors as:
- market conditions,
- which markets to move into,
- how the organization will compete in the transition state, and
- how to best position the organization’s brand proposition.
Business architecture provides the enterprise context and architectural views that allow an understanding of the enterprise so these questions can be analyzed in the context of cost, opportunity, and effort.
BABOK® Guide Techniques
- Balanced Scorecard (p. 223)
- Benchmarking and Market Analysis (p. 226)
- Brainstorming (p. 227)
- Business Capability Analysis (p. 230)
- Business Model Canvas (p. 236)
- Business Rules Analysis (p. 240)
- Collaborative Games (p. 243)
- Data Modelling (p. 256)
- Document Analysis (p. 269)
- Estimation (p. 271)
- Focus Groups (p. 279)
- Glossary (p. 286)
- Metrics and Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) (p. 297) - Organizational Modelling (p. 308)
- Reviews (p. 326)
- Risk Analysis and Management (p. 329)
- Stakeholder List, Map, or Personas (p. 344)
- Survey or Questionnaire (p. 350)
- SWOT Analysis (p. 353)
- Workshops (p. 363)
Other Business Analysis Techniques
- Archimate®
- Business Process Architecture
- Capability Map
- Customer Journey Map
- Enterprise Core Diagram
- Project Portfolio Analysis
- Roadmap
- Service-oriented Analysis
- Strategy Map
- Value Mapping
.5 Requirements Analysis and Design Definition
Business architecture provides individual architectural views into the organization through a variety of models that are selected for the stakeholders utilizing the view. These architectural views can be provided by capability and value maps, organizational maps, and information and business process models. Business analysts working in the discipline of business architecture employ expertise, judgment, and experience when deciding what is (and what is not) important to model. Models are intended to provide context and information that result in better requirements analysis and design.
The architectural context and the ability to reference readily available architectural views provides information that would have otherwise been based on assumptions that the analyst must make because no other information was available. By providing this information, business architecture minimizes the risk of duplication of efforts in creating capabilities, systems, or information that already exist elsewhere in the enterprise.
Design is done in conjunction with understanding needs and requirements. Business architecture provides the context to analyze the strategic alignment of proposed changes and the effects those changes have upon each other. Business architects synthesize knowledge and insights from multiple architectural views to determine if proposed changes work towards or conflict with the organization’s goals.
Business architecture attempts to ensure that the enterprise as a whole continues to deliver value to stakeholders both during normal operations and during change. Business analysts working in the discipline of business architecture focus on the value provided by the organization from a holistic view. They attempt to avoid local optimization where effort and resources are put into a single process or system improvement which does not align with the strategy and garners no meaningful impact to the enterprise as a whole – or worse, sub-optimizes the whole.
BABOK® Guide Techniques
- Acceptance and Evaluation Criteria (p. 217)
- Backlog Management (p. 220)
- Balanced Scorecard (p. 223)
- Benchmarking and Market Analysis (p. 226)
- Brainstorming (p. 227)
- Business Capability Analysis (p. 230)
- Business Model Canvas (p. 236)
- Business Rules Analysis (p. 240)
- Collaborative Games (p. 243)
- Data Dictionary (p. 247)
- Data Flow Diagrams (p. 250)
- Data Modelling (p. 256)
- Decision Analysis (p. 261)
- Document Analysis (p. 269)
- Estimation (p. 271)
- Focus Groups (p. 279)
- Functional Decomposition (p. 283)
- Glossary (p. 286)
- Interface Analysis (p. 287)
- Item Tracking (p. 294)
- Lessons Learned (p. 296)
- Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (p. 297)
- Non-Functional Requirements Analysis (p. 302)
- Observation (p. 305)
- Organizational Modelling (p. 308)
- Process Analysis (p. 314)
- Process Modelling (p. 318)
- Prototyping (p. 323)
- Reviews (p. 326)
- Risk Analysis and Management (p. 329)
- Roles and Permissions Matrix (p. 333)
- Root Cause Analysis (p. 335)
- Scope Modelling (p. 338)
- Sequence Diagrams (p. 341)
- Stakeholder List, Map, or Personas (p. 344)
- State Modelling (p. 348)
- Survey or Questionnaire (p. 350)
- SWOT Analysis (p. 353)
- Use Cases and Scenarios (p. 356)
- User Stories (p. 359)
- Vendor Assessment (p. 361)
- Workshops (p. 363)
Other Business Analysis Techniques
- Archimate®
- Business Process Architecture
- Capability Map
- Customer Journey Map
- Enterprise Core Diagram
- Project Portfolio Analysis
- Roadmap
- Service-oriented Analysis
- Value Mapping
.6 Solution Evaluation
Business architecture asks fundamental questions about the business, including the important question of how well the business is performing.
To answer this question, several other questions must be answered:
- What outcomes are the business, a particular initiative, or component expecting to achieve?
- How can those outcomes be measured in terms of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bounded) objectives?
- What information is needed to measure those objectives?
- How do processes, services, initiatives, etc. need to be instrumented to collect that information?
- How is the performance information best presented in terms of reports, ad hoc queries, dashboards, etc.?
- How do we use this information to make investment decisions in the future?
For example, at a more detailed level, an important part of capability definition and process architecture is to identify the specific performance characteristics and outcome that those capabilities or processes are expected to achieve. The actual measurement is rarely conducted by business analysts. It is usually done by business owners, operational, or information technology managers.
Business analysts working in the discipline of business architecture analyze the results of measurements and factor these results into subsequent planning.
BABOK® Guide Techniques
- Balanced Scorecard (p. 223)
- Benchmarking and Market Analysis (p. 226)
- Brainstorming (p. 227)
- Business Capability Analysis (p. 230)
- Collaborative Games (p. 243)
- Focus Groups (p. 279)
- Item Tracking (p. 294)
- Lessons Learned (p. 296)
- Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (p. 297)
- Observation (p. 305)
- Organizational Modelling (p. 308)
- Process Analysis (p. 314)
- Process Modelling (p. 318)
- Risk Analysis and Management (p. 329)
- Roles and Permissions Matrix (p. 333)
- Root Cause Analysis (p. 335)
- Stakeholder List, Map, or Personas (p. 344)
- Survey or Questionnaire (p. 350)
- SWOT Analysis (p. 353)
Other Business Analysis Techniques
- Business Motivation Modelling
- Business Process Architecture
- Capability Map
- Customer Journey Map
- Service-oriented Analysis
- Value Mapping
