Applying Enterprise Business Architecture

This workshop offers topics related to enterprise-wide analysis while drilling down into the business architecture. There are many key benefits for focusing on the business architecture, including that it:

• Decreases costs of business analysis activities for projects
• Decreases scope gaps and portfolio management conflicts
• Improves business decision making and the visibility of business process opportunities
• Assures alignment of technology to business valued processes
• Improves communications
• Shortens time for business transformations
• Reduces technology investment risks
• Assists in requirements tracking
• Increases reusability of assets

What You'll Learn

• Strategically advise both business and technology organizations
• Leverage architectural models to bridge business units and technology organizations
• Work with product owners to identify gaps between business capabilities and product roadmaps
• Build a business architecture that meets the needs of your enterprise
• Use techniques and tools to build business architecture components and artifacts
• Define scope of initiatives through the reuse of architectural components
• Identify problems and opportunities using the business architecture
• Justify opportunities and assess feasibility of proposed solutions
• Apply architectural principles to business opportunities
• Capture stakeholder views and business requirements
• Assess solution alternatives
• Assess and present alternative solutions for decision making, buy-in, and approval
• Assist in portfolio management prioritization
• Assure alignment by tracking the opportunity's business value and vision from strategy to implementation
• Communicate the business architecture and present solutions to management

Who Needs to Attend

• Business analyst
• Business or functional managers
• Product and process owners
• Program managers or project managers
• Solution architects
• Technical architects (application, infrastructure, or information)

Course Outline

1. Architecture Key Concepts

• Workshop Glossary
• Why Business Architecture
• Value of Key Components
• Business Need for Subsets and Stakeholder Views
• Business Architecture in Context with other Enterprise Architectures
• Industry Best Practice Frameworks and Methodologies
• Reusing Organizational Assets

2. Prepare to Build a Business Architecture

• Business Architecture Maturity Model and Governance Processes
• Needed Individual and Organizational Competencies
• Review or Assist in Creation of Inputs
• Business and Operating Models, Balanced Score Card, and Strategies
• Identify Artifacts (Static or Dynamic and Granularity Level)
• Identify Applicable Techniques, Tools, and Notations
• Architecture Development and Transition Roadmap (High-Level Plan with Iterations to Future State)

3. Build a Business Architecture-Models and Maps

• Capability and Services Map
• Business Process Models
• Organizational Model
• Value Streams
• Alignment Maps (i.e., alignment to information or technology architectural components)
• Ownership Matrices

4. Build a Business Architecture-Techniques, Tools, and Methods

• Document Analysis
• Benchmarks and Surveys
• SWOT Analysis and Other Business Decision Making Tools
• Business Event Analysis
• Business Policy Identification
• Measures and Metrics
• Review and Obtain Approvals

5. Analyze at the Enterprise Level

• Applying Root Cause Analysis and Questioning Techniques
• Identify Problems and Clarify Vision Statements
• Uncover Business Requirements
• Defining Scope and Applying Stakeholder Views for Analysis
• Generate and Assess Solution Alternatives
• Estimate and Document Assumptions (Delphi Technique)

6. Justify and Communicate

• Moving from Strategy to Tactical
• Creating a Business Case and Feasibility Study
• Tracking Business Value
• Assisting in Prioritization Efforts
• Hints and Tips for Presenting Solutions to Management Teams
• Keeping the Business Architecture Dynamic
• Other Industry "Hot Topics" and Their Influence on the Business Architecture

Hands-On Exercises:

1. Present a solution to an executive committee
2. Identify impacts to the business architecture based on a scenario
3. Optional depending on available time: Identify any technique or tool for more practice
4. Terminology and asset gap assessment
5. Which components would you use and why
6. Which framework would you use and why
7. Current state competency assessment
8. Facilitate creation of a business model based on scenario
9. Build a current state model
10. Build a business capability map
11. Identify the domain under discussion
12. Build a future state model
13. Create a problem or vision statement
14. Identify the domain under discussion and generate solution ideas
15. Estimate and document assumptions for a solution alternative