The Business Architect in the Organization[i]

Activities

There are two primary activities a Business Architect typically undertakes within an organization:

Scan, Inform and Advise

Business Architects perform comprehensive high-level scans of all of the factors that may affect organizational design including the economy, political trends, competitive marketplace and customer preferences with the help of the strategy and market research groups, the organization and the supply chain with the help of operations, line managers, subject matter experts, consultants and rubber-meets-the-road employees to assess organizational health, identify incongruencies and uncover valuable opportunities. 

Business Architects advise Executive Management and keep them informed of new concepts, trends and ways of thinking that may affect decision-making.

Business Architects provide mediation and management support for important and developing situations. An experienced Business Architect has the skills, knowledge, relationships, authority and judgment to analyze the factors internal and external to an important situation, pull together appropriate experts and information, craft a holistically complete solution, secure Executive Management’s approval, present the recommendations for changes necessary to accomplish the solution to the right audiences, in the right way and in a format that is understandable, thoughtful, and actionable, and then administer the implementation to ensure it is comprehensively implemented and properly modified to accommodate all local conditions.  

Engagements

Changes in strategy, issues and opportunities discovered during scans and good ideas bubbling up from within the organization are converted into business architecture engagements that result in the creation of initiatives executed by operations and line managers, and the definition of project sets passed to the project management group for implementation.

Business Architecture Improvement Lifecycle™

Business Architects often use a lifecycle approach to identifying and implementing transformational opportunities for improving an organization’s design.  Business Architects recognize that the competitive landscape in which a business competes is constantly changing, and that the organization must continuously adapt to remain competitive. The lifecycle process ensures the organization identifies and implements the transformations necessary remain competitive.  The following is an example: