Partnering with Business Architecture

Business Architecture provides the operational blueprint of the organization. It keeps an inventory of all of the major processes and in better scenarios the detailed processes of the organization. These inventoried processes are summarized into Business Capabilities. Business Capabilities are essentially what the business performs as the processes.

How Business Architecture obtains and provides this information if delivered with maximum value, is by partnering with operations executives AND also with Product and IT Architecture teams. Let's start with IT Architecture. When Business Architecture involves IT Enterprise Architecture (EA) from the beginning of its work, it keeps EA in the loop on what type of business guidance they are going to receive for managing Architecture Standards. They also will inform Solutions Architects (essentially project architects) downstream. This helps when business cases are being developed by the Business Transformation (termed evolved from PMOs).

A big key for Business Architecture to partner with is the Product teams. This can not stated strongly enough. It is the Product teams, along with the PMOs, that perform the most essential implementation work in a joint effort with the Agile teams. When Business Architecture collects and documents the Business Operations Blueprint in discussions with operational functions, pain is collected along the way. This pain is solutioned a Gap between the current and desired state. These Gaps are grouped into bodies of work to be performed by Agile teams. These gaps are also factored in when Business Architecture is wrapping up its work to present to operations executives not only the painted business case delivered visions, but some basic steps that need to be taken.f