Developing Business Architecture and Operating Model

Developing Business Architecture

The EA process model can be represented as a series of seven steps that can be followed for any architecture viewpoint, including ongoing management, governance, and communication. It must be done iteratively: architects continuously evolve depth and breadth as business context changes.

Building a business architecture is an iterative process; the same EA process applies when developing an EBA.

1] Definition and Scope

To start using EBA, the EA team should:

Establish a clear EBA definition, including overall objectives.

Create a scope statement for the iteration and an out‑of‑scope statement.

Develop a statement of relevant assumptions (e.g., availability of business subject‑matter experts).

Identify overall business sponsors and initiators for each iteration.

Determine relationships between EBA activities and other viewpoint activities, dependencies, and relationships.

Produce a statement describing the relationship to the overall EA process.

Identify key constraints (compliance, extended enterprise ecosystem, organizational culture and politics, industry and regional requirements).

2] Organization

Identify and organize the team to perform the iteration. This means detailing key leadership and member roles and ensuring formal involvement from their respective domains. Collect necessary supporting information, models, and artifacts.

Any EBA team should have:

A clear charter based on goals and objectives.

Explicit roles and responsibilities.

3] Future State

The third step defines the EA vision for the future state by specifying requirements, principles, and models that describe long‑term goals and how to achieve them. The first task is to define the context of EBA changes and understand how business context applies to the EBA iteration.

4] Current State

The fourth step establishes a baseline of the current state, aiming to understand the present business dimensions within the EA/EBA scope and prepare for gap analysis.

5] Gap Analysis

At this step the gaps between current and future states become evident, and the goal is to document those gaps clearly.

6] Migration Plan

The EA roadmap serves as a planning tool to propose change initiatives that move the enterprise from the current to the future state. The EBA team should:

Recommend changes to EBA dimensions (people, processes, organization, finance).

Identify changes to related ETA, EIA, and ESA architectures.

Determine adjustment decisions (organizational changes, re‑defining projects, project launches).

Determine investment decisions (skills, personnel, technology).

Identify scenarios for EBA dimensions that may be affected by internal or external factors (compliance, culture, politics, industry, region).

7] Iteration and Optimization

As the organization evolves, the EBA team should consider deeper iterations, especially strengthening dependencies on other architecture viewpoints, to improve relevance and impact analysis and increase agility.

Operating Model

An operating model is an abstract representation of how, where, and with whom an organization operates, encompassing daily decisions that achieve its mission and strategic goals while delivering value to target customers.

The alignment of operating and business models is a key component for tightening execution to deliver more value at lower cost. Business architects have significant opportunities to define operating models that create substantial value.

Five Core Elements for Creating an Effective Operating Model

The five elements essential for defining an operating model are:

Leadership

Governance

Organizational Model

Capabilities

Services

Business architects who focus on clarity and consistency of these elements support successful company strategy.