Topic 1- Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

As the title states, one of the key pillars of enabling the transformation to achieve the strategy is the culture of the organization. I wanted to discuss culture as one of my topics because I believe the BA relies heavily on the culture of the business to accept the BAs as their partners in achieving goals. I have witnessed this type of culture firsthand where it took the BAs multiple times to convince the business of their role; however, the business was not accepting it and the architect’s role was transformed to a business analyst instead and limited the organization from gaining the value achieved by the architects. This new culture change will require both support and empowerment from the executive management level as well as have a shift in the mindset of those within the business to understand the role achieved by the BAs. One of the indirect roles achieved by the BAs is to ensure that the proper transformation of the culture change is in motion while strategy milestones are achieved. In addition, this will be the first milestone for Enterprise Architecture as a practice within the organization to operate. There are several tips and tricks I’d like to share to help develop the trust and getting the BA more involved:

• Observing before contributing– One critical factor to be aware of is to make sure that you invest in observing the environment within the organization before deep diving into making changes or decisions.
• The power of listening- BAs need to learn to be good listeners and this will eventually raise questions about the process/procedure which might contribute to developing current state.
• Get involved to contribute not to lead- BAs need to proactively involve themselves with the business through activities to give them a better understanding and put their foot in the door in terms of contribution.

Topic 2- The Importance of Business Architecture and capabilities

Business Architecture, although it is considered an emerging practice within the EA framework, I think in today’s rapid shift in business transformation and disruptions due to technology it is a core pillar. The BA plays a vital role if it was set up to succeed correctly within an organization and empowered to deliver its value. While the business side is too focused on strategizing and operating their function, the BA’s role is to reinforce the business of ensuring they have enabled the right capabilities to achieve the strategy. One of the critical roles the BA will deliver value from is defining the capabilities. These capabilities are not only limited to functions but could also be technology or data as well. As an EA practitioner, I believe one of the steps to take before defining the future state is to define the current capabilities of the organization; this key step will benefit the organization as follows:

• Common Grounds– Defining the current capabilities will provide insight and a common ground for everyone within the team and the organization to where does the organization currently stand.
• Maturity– As we have defined the capabilities, the BA and business team are easily able to pinpoint the level of maturity for each and this can be achieved by defining the level of investment made financially or can be the number of automated services available within the function.

One of the interesting figures I wanted to share is in the image above which tells many stories about the organization in just one model and part of the vital role of business architect:

1. Number of functions within the organization
2. Level of maturity for each function
3. Areas in need for investment/ elimination/ merging
4. Identifying new functions needed to meet the future state.