Set Business Architecture Goals BEFORE You Start
Starting a business architecture initiative with the goal of creating business architecture is the surest path to failure. Before you take your first step into business architecture, think long and hard about your goals, what value you are trying to create for the company, and your current ability to execute. The successful business architects I work with have a crystal clear view of the problems they are attempting to solve and the primary stakeholders for that problem set. They typically start with a narrow focus on a specific business problem and widen their approach as they make progress. While the more theoretical architects out there make strong arguments about what business architecture “should be” – the reality seems to be quite different. Business architecture success is creating an architecture that works – not one that adheres to an idealized business architecture model.
Forrester has identified seven business architecture goals along with their primary stakeholder. Business architecture practices can attack multiple goals simultaneously, but keep in mind that a narrower focus leads to faster value delivery.
Focus |
Goal |
Primary stakeholder |
Business transformation |
Create new business capabilities and/or leverage existing capabilities in new ways to create new business value |
Senior executives and business strategists |
Business effectiveness |
Improve existing business capabilities to better serve the customer or significantly enhance business operations. |
COO and line of business executives |
Business efficiency |
Improve process efficiency and reduce functional overlaps to reduce operational costs and complexity |
COO and business managers |
Business-IT alignment |
Improve goal, strategy, investment, and resource alignment between IT and business units |
CIO and business executives |
IT effectiveness |
Improve IT’s core capabilities to serve the business needs |
CIO and IT executives |
IT efficiency |
Improve IT’s cost performance through process improvement and technology standards |
IT managers |
EA effectiveness |
Improve EA performance through better understanding of business and IT goals and strategies |
Enterprise architects |
My advice to new business architects? Think big – start small – move fast. First figure out what you would really like the business architecture to be. Then drop back to what you actually can accomplish in the near term given your current skills and organizational context. Set reasonable goals and with every success, move the ball forward. Keep in mind that just like everything else in business, value is everything. The more value you add, the faster you can move.
If you have a success story about growing business architecture or a challenge you are struggling with, let me hear from you.