Six Best Practices for EBA
As my organization begins to integrate our business capabilities and processes with our EA initiative, it is paramount that we define our enterprise business architecture (EBA) and develop a comprehensive strategy for effectively supporting it. Burton’s article “Six Best Practices for Enterprise Business Architecture) is a great starting point that offers research-based best practices to establish EBA and properly sustain its development and growth.
Before stating the six best practices, Burton offers some key suggestions that are critical to EBA. First, organizational leadership needs to engage and support EBA. Second, developing EA artifacts isn’t a fundamental process of EBA. Finally, a business approach supported by early stakeholder involvement is the key to EBA success. The blue circle in the image below outlines the central business components necessary to establish an EBA.
The six best practices for EBA include:
- Get Agreement on EBA’s Definition and Impact – individuals have different ideas regarding the definition and value of EBA. Therefore, an agreement by the business, IT, and EA teams on the definition and value of EBA needs to be reached. Organizational culture should also be considered when establishing these agreements.
- Define and Socialize a Common Language – in terms of defining the EBA principles, processes, artifacts, capabilities, and requirements, a common language and vocabulary should be established to ensure everyone across the organization understands what is being communicated. A glossary or repository may be of assistance here.
- Focus on High-Level Business Capabilities – internal services necessary to operate the business in conjunction with primary services for customers, partners, and suppliers should be the focus of the EBA.
- Create a Business-Driven “Line of Sight” – the evolution of the EBA needs to remain business-driven. This begins with recognizing and understanding how business context and strategy impact the processes, people, and technology of the organization.
- Understand Stakeholders’ Pain and Passion Points – these pain and passion points offer EBA opportunities to increase stakeholder buy-in and support.
- Increase Stakeholder Buy-In – this is a critical best practice necessary in all aspects of EA.
While none of these best practices are considerably surprising, it is important for an organization to continually revisit their business context and strategy to ensure the EBA is consistently adapted to meet the requirements of both.
References
Burton, B. (2009, January 29). Gartner. Six Best Practices for Enterprise Business Architecture.
How to Embed EA in the Organization
Keeping in mind the six best EBA practices listed in the blog entry above, Miers and Barnett (Forrester) suggest embedding EBA efforts into three key business scenarios. Like Burton, Miers and Barnett initially point out the importance of engaging effectively with key business stakeholders to solve critical business challenges, but they quickly turn their attention to the scenarios they feel are most impacted by EBA.
Provide A Lens For Financial Allocation
Business architects should engage with business leaders to assess the differences between core capabilities and utilities. From there, the core capabilities of an organization that help create a distinct advantage can be emphasized as areas for investment while the utilities that support those capabilities can be developed into a shared service of the organization if they aren’t already. Business architects should also make sure the short-term tactical decisions are aligned with their long-term objectives.
Make Customer Experience Transformation Initiatives Real
A successful customer experience strategy begins with understanding the customer’s experience and then designing and creating solutions around that knowledge. All touchpoints of a customer’s interaction with the organization need to be considered to ensure critical aspects of the customers’ journey aren’t overlooked. Business architects can use this information to create various models (capability models, target operating models, etc.) to illustrate how to best utilize services and capabilities to effectively enhance the customer experience ecosystem.
Identify Synergies
Most organizations have areas where processes are duplicated or multiple solutions have been implemented to solve the same problem. Left unaddressed, these processes can develop into structured business processes that ultimately increase inefficiency and cost. Business architects can identify and address these areas of inefficiency by mapping organizational processes with its capabilities. This can be particularly important when mergers and acquisitions transpire.
References
Miers, D., Barnett, G. (2013, June 12). Forrester. How To Embed BA In The Organization.
Business Architecture in 2020
In 2013, Forrester published a report outlining key trends that will drive business architecture in 2020. Given that the majority of my attention has been placed on the successful development and support of business architecture, I thought it would be interesting to read about the potential changes and vision of business architecture in the near future.
A shift in demographics and customer input
A unique challenge that organizations (and ultimately business architects) will encounter is having to shift their business models and practices to meet the demands of various demographic groups such as the baby boomers, the digital generation, and the internet generation. Baby boomers will continue to work and therefore have income to spend. The digital age will focus on a work/life balance and demand an any-place, any-time type culture and the internet age will prefer personalized, on-demand products and services. In conjunction with these changes in behavior, customer relationships will shift and include more opportunities for customers to have direct input that impacts the development of products and services. In fact, some companies have already started to implement these opportunities. For instance, Nike offers customers the opportunity to create custom shoes by taking advantage of their NikeID initiative.
Business architecture must expand beyond organizational boundaries
Organizations will need to shift their focus from organization boundaries to incorporate their entire business ecosystem. Third-parties will have greater influence on business strategy causing executive committees to have to react accordingly. For example, an organization may decide to include business capabilities provided by a third party to realize their business mission.
Business architects must develop new competencies
Currently, a primary responsibility for business architects is focusing on strategic direction and alignment. However, business architects need to be included in making strategic decisions and therefore need to refocus on strategic management. Business architects also need to move beyond their core set of competencies and develop more advanced analysis methods and techniques. This is particularly important in the areas of internal and external performance and dependency analysis. Finally, business architects must develop their external relationship management skills to address the different cultures, motivations, and interests of external stakeholders.
Overall, I think Forrester was spot on with this report detailing their thoughts on business architecture in 2020. Organizations have evolved from an internal focus to an external focus for quite some time now and a strong emphasis continues to be placed on developing a comprehensive customer relationship strategy that continues to strengthen as customers become more knowledgeable and empowered.
References
Barnett, G., Miers, D. (2013, May 29). Forrester. Business Architecture 2020 – Extending Beyond Organizational Boundaries.
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