Thursday 29 September 2016

Business Architecture " Don't boil the Ocean"

Appropriate modelling to serve stakeholders and communicate particular things is becoming much more the preferred approach than modelling the whole enterprise at all levels of detail.

The business case for a central architecture team is a difficult one to write and to get approved in a changing world. Tool vendors in the majority provide a: holistic model, modle everything approach in their provided databases (meta modals)  and this doesn't help AGILE architecture.

Selling the top down centralised way for doing business architecture is becoming less and less successful as many of these centralised teams are being disbanded in cost cutting programmes. Architecture teams employ expensive people and they need to demonstrate real visible value in pound and dollar terms.

Embedding architecting skills within individuals, who then operate in different roles across the organisation, rather than training specialists and placing them in vunerable teams is growing as the alternative way forward.

Business architecture is evolving and training needs to adapt in response. Through teaching AGILE architecting to support faster and more dynamic responses we can assist. No longer can we justify the cost and time in large centralised modelling teams except in certain strategic situations; such as cost leadership in high volume repeatable activity where controlled repitition is the strategy.

We need to diversify the people across the organisation to maintain and protect the ability to shape and design.

So bin the holistic metamodels! Ask the stakeholder what they what to see and now and model that and stop.



1 comment:

  1. Not boiling the ocean is a great idea. Another good idea is not re-inventing the wheel. A business architect that starts with a customizable business capabilities straw model can accelerate time to value and reduce the churn. https://www.capstera.com/product/enterprise-business-capabilities-map/

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