Re-thinking Business Architecture to Fit Today’s Contex — Introduction

Category: Business Architecture

Published on Sunday, 17 June 2012 21:37

Written by Rubina Polovina

Hits: 1961

In today’s economy with budgets shrinking around the world (for example, Ontario Public Service [OPS], UK Police [Gohring], and USA Military Aerospace [Keller], and technology in general [Strohm]), it seems that everyone has to produce more for less, or face gloomy predictions. How does Business Architecture help?

Looking at the LinkedIn discussion that was triggered by my question—“What is the future of Business Architecture?” —12 readers who responded directly to my question believed that there is a future for Business Architecture, but anticipated some kind of transformation of Business Architecture activities. This series of short articles on Business Architecture is a work-in-progress, and an update of my research on the topic conducted in late 1990/early 2000. The purpose of this research is to discuss new and future trends in Business Architecture, and particularly, how Business Architecture has to transform to add value in the current context.

There are many Business Architecture frameworks and organizations (e.g., OMG Group, Business Architecture Guild, Business Analysis Institute) that work in the same, or overlapping, domains. To deal with these different, and often competing, schools of thought, I would offer a generic and descriptive definition of Business Architecture:

Definition: Business Architecture—A model of real-world that contains discourse relevant for an IT-intensive endeavor (or, simply, IT endeavor)

This definition covers the whole class of Business Architecture models which are abstractions of the real world discourse, i.e., business. In other words, other layers of Enterprise Architecture (e.g., logical and technical architectures) are models of technology systems.The Business Architecture models may be created for different purposes. For example, to:

• create an IT Solution (e.g., as a phase in Software Development Life Cycle – SDLC)
• understand and learn about the business (e.g., missions, transformation)
  
• create and verify a new business strategy
• predict business outcomes (e.g., market simulation models)

Thus, the definition offered above includes existing Business Architecture purposes and is open to accepting new purposes that are to be defined and discovered.

The above definition complies with Zachman’s Enterprise Architecture Framework, particularly with the first two layers – Contextual and Conceptual Layer [Zachman]—because it is the “model of the real-world,” independent of the computer systems used to support, enable, or carry out the endeavor. At the same time, the definition includes the OMG Business Architecture Group definition [BASIG], “a blueprint of the enterprise that provides a common understanding of the organization and is used to align strategic objectives and tactical demands.” The definition also complies with The Open Group Architecture Framework [TOGAF] description of Business Architecture, given primarily in relation to Technical Architecture (e.g., “Business Architecture is often necessary as a means of demonstrating the value of subsequent technical architecture”).

At this point, I acknowledge that the term ‘Conceptual’ (instead of Business) may be more appropriate, because ‘conceptual’ includes endeavors that are not business-oriented, such as scientific, or department of defense (DoD) endeavors. Indeed, I used the term ‘Conceptual Models’ in my scientific papers to avoid confusion caused by existence of various Business Architecture frameworks (as per above) definitions. In addition, I used the term ‘framework’ to avoid confusion among various Enterprise Architecture frameworks, Business Architecture frameworks and Reference Models. I saw many, many times how these terms cause unproductive discussions and I try to avoid confusion whenever possible.

Another reason for using the term Conceptual Model is to emphasize that modeling techniques that we use primarily to support solution development may be used to research and inform the real-world domain—in this case business. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that these days, modeling techniques may be used to develop strategies, and at the same time, validate these strategies. In addition, it is anticipated the domain will be changing and evolving, and it should be possible to include various modeling techniques to research the real-world domain (e.g., market simulation).

However, having in mind that this research is primarily driven by business needs, and that Business Architecture is commonly used by the audience, I am using the term Business Architecture.

In the generic definition, the term ‘relevant’ is ambiguous, but I include it to emphasize that Business Architecture can be applied as a recursive method, and relevant to all levels of endeavors, large or small; for example, in consortiums of organizations or governments, down to small startup businesses and projects.

While it can be discussed whether alignment between business and IT, and business transformation, were always in the scope of Business Architecture, it appears new trends are going in the following directions:

• supportive of new technologies (e.g., cloud computing, social networks, web)
• facilitation and verification of business strategy and strategic management, and planning execution of these strategies
• knowledge transfer and communication among all functional groups (e.g., strategic management, marketing)
• overcoming geographical and cultural differences of global businesses

As a model of the real world that is relevant for an IT endeavor, Business Architecture contains knowledge needed by all stakeholders in an IT-intensive endeavor. Thus, as a knowledge representation tool, managed correctly, Business Architecture is in a unique position to evolve into one of the most important enterprise assets.

References:

[BASIG]   The Business Architecture Group “Mission and Overview”, Object Management Group (OMG). http://bawg.omg.org/

[Dignan Larry]   Dignan Larry. “Business execs: Enterprise IT isn't innovative, slightly delusional” ZDNet, May 30. 2012 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/business-execs-enterprise-it-isnt-innovative-slightly-delusional/78556

[Keller John]   Keller John. Military Aerospace, March 1, 2012. http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-23/issue-3/news/trends/the-incredible-shrinking-budget-for-us-military-technology-research.html

[LinkedIn Groups]    http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Forrester-Iceberg-Dead-Ahead-4212639.S.120878210

[Gohring Nancy]   Gohring Nancy. “Shrinking Budgets Spur Creativity in Public Safety IT”, PC World, March 14, 2012. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/251846/shrinking_budgets_spur_creativity_in_public_safety_it.html

[OPS]   Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services – Executive Summary. http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/reformcommission/chapters/executive-summary.pdf

[Polovina and Wojtkowski]   Polovina, R, Wojtkowski W., Wojtkowski, G. “Reusable Abstract Design as a Knowledge Repository: Its Utility in Software Intense Systems for the Networked Enterprise”, World Multiconference of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (SCI), Orlando, Florida, July 2002.

[Polovina, Wojtkowski and Wojtkowski]   Polovina, R, Wojtkowski,W., Wojtkowski G. “Framework oriented software development and its challenges: commercial software solutions providers perspective”, International Conference of Information Systems Development: Methods & Tools, Theory & Practice, Kristiansand, Norway, August 2000. Also published in “Contemporary Trends in Systems Development,” edited by M.K. Sein et al., Kluwer Academic 2001, pp. 79-91.

[Steve Riley]   Steve Riley,  “How to think Cloud”. http://www.cohaa.org/content/sites/default/files/AWS - How to think cloud - Steve Riley.pdf

[Strohm Chris]  Strohm Chris, "Obama Budget Calls for Cuts in Spending for U.S. Technology”, Bloomberg Businessweek, February 16, 2012-06-12.http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-16/obama-budget-calls-for-cuts-in-spending-for-u-s-technology.html

[TOGAF]   The Open Group, “The Open Group Architecture Framework 8.1.1 Phase B – Business Architecture”, http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/toc.html

[Varia Jinesh]   Varia Jinesh, "Architectural Design Patterns in Cloud Computing" http://softwarestrategiesblog.com/2010/07/01/architectural-design-patterns-in-cloud-computing-excellent-presentation-by-aws/

Rubina Polovina, PhD is a principal IT consultant who has been providing leadership on national and international multi-party initiatives in the public and private sectors. During more than 20 years in the IT industry, she contributed to projects in Europe, North America and in the Middle East.

Currently, Rubina lives in Toronto, Ontario. She has been working on projects at major Canadian financial institutions and the Government of Ontario. Her research interests include enterprise architecture, knowledge management, IT management, IT project management, IT risk management, privacy protection, social networks and eHealth. Rubina’s scientific work has been both tested across various vertical industries and presented on peer-review international conferences.

Rubina graduated in electrical engineering in 1987 from the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and she received her PhD in computer science and engineering in 2000 from the Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic. Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.