Articles

The Business Architect’s Service Portfolio

The Business Architect’s Service Portfolio

Author(s):

President, Business Innovation Partners

For some time now I have been promoting the idea that the practice of business architecture is not about creating blueprints and models but applying a set of tools and techniques to form broader perspectives, create deeper insight, and solve business problems. If business architecture is a practice, then what is its portfolio of services and how do you create them?

Start with three best practices

There are three basic best practices for service development that lead to a powerful service portfolio.

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10 Steps to Becoming an Agile Business Analyst (Part 2)

10 Steps to Becoming an Agile Business Analyst (Part 2)

Author(s):

Managing Director, Both Hemispheres, LLC

10 proven approaches for transitioning from a traditional business analyst role to an Agile business analyst role (Part 2 of 2) The first 5 steps to becoming an Agile Business analyst were outlined in part 1 of this article. Now, part 2 of this article provides you with five more tips for becoming a successful Agile Business Analyst.

Step 6: Be an Expert Communicator

Everything about the Agile business analyst role depends upon effective communication with business users, development team members, management, and executives to understand their needs and to act as a liaison across all parties. You should be equally comfortable speaking with stakeholders at both a big picture level and at a very detailed level, depending on what the situation requires.

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Aligning Business Process Performance to Business Strategy

Aligning Business Process Performance to Business Strategy

Author(s):

Editorial Director and current Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org

In 2006 the Babson Process Management Research Center defined Strategic Alignment as the continual tight linkage of organizational priorities and enterprise processes, enabling achievement of business goals. Phrased differently this means linking strategy goals to operational goals and linking operational goals to process goals. This equates to defining a method for improving alignment among the organization’s performance measures, strategic plans, improvement projects, and budgets. It assumes that the organization employs a method for defining its business strategy such as a Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Using the BSC as an example one must first examine it to determine how BPM can be integrated into the BSC approach. BPM specifically focuses on improving the Internal Quadrant of the BSC. The Balanced Scorecard approach does the following:

 

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Establishing a Business Architecture Practice: A Practical Approach

Establishing a Business Architecture Practice: A Practical Approach

Author(s):

Principal, S2E Consulting Inc.

Once business architecture gains enough traction within an organization, it is important to formalize the practice. Having clarity of purpose, structure and intention for business architecture activities ensures that the team functions efficiently, is appropriately recognized, and can scale to meet the needs of the organization.

As a business architecture practice matures, the value it can deliver increases in strategic nature, scope and complexity. Establishing a successful, sustainable business architecture practice is a journey which takes time, particularly for large organizations. This article provides a practical perspective on how to establish and mature a practice over time considering the realities which many organizations face.

A Common Reality

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Demonstrating the Value of Business Architecture before Determining a Business Architecture Tool

Demonstrating the Value of Business Architecture before Determining a Business Architecture Tool

Author(s):

Sr. Business Architect, WAZA Consulting

State of the Practice

As Business Architecture emerges as an Agile business practice, practitioners are still struggling to demonstrate how valuable their unique perspectives and modeling efforts are inside their organizations. Many practitioners address this by spending their initial efforts crafting titles, defining governance, and searching for software to create and maintain highly detailed capability models. While organization, charters, and tools are vital to success, they are irrelevant if there is no team to govern or customer willing to listen to your business research insights. An obsession with detailed capability models or enforcing documentation standards without taking the time to understand culture and adoption, will end up being counterproductive. This approach often frustrates our customers, slows the overall adoption of the practice, and alienates us individually from the business.

Business Analysis Paralysis

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10 Steps to Becoming an Agile Business Analyst (Part 1)

10 Steps to Becoming an Agile Business Analyst (Part 1)

Author(s):

Managing Director, Both Hemispheres, LLC

10 proven approaches for transitioning from a traditional business analyst role to an Agile business analyst role (Part 1 of 2)

Making the switch from traditional software development approaches to Agile methods can be a challenge for any IT professional but it is especially challenging for business analysts. Although there are thousands of resources available to guide Agile teams, relatively few of them are written specifically to answer the Agile business analysts’ most common questions:

  • What is my role on the Agile development team?
  • What is the most effective way for me to work with Product Owners?
  • How do I make a smooth transition from writing detailed requirements specifications to crafting succinct and powerful user stories?

And, most important, how do I get started?

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The Politically Savvy Business Architect: Lessons from the Field

The Politically Savvy Business Architect: Lessons from the Field

Author(s):

Senior Director, Ameriprise Financial

When people ask me what I do for a living I often joke that I manage chaos and keep people aligned.  In other words, I deal with the politics that plague every organization.  It feels like I spend the majority of my time clarifying what was actually said, convincing people that they agree with each other, and just trying to keep things moving forward.  Some refer to this as herding cats.  A key skill for a business architect is political savviness, meaning the ability to successfully get things done in a maze of egos, competing priorities, and organizational bedlam.  So how do you develop political savviness?  Let’s look at this from two different perspectives. 

Science

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As-Is Modeling is Over-Rated

As-Is Modeling is Over-Rated

Author(s):

President, BPMPros LLC

Most process design methodologies start by modeling the As-Is processes before proceeding to define the To-Be processes. In our experience, many projects spend more time than is necessary modeling the As-Is, when they should be working towards the future. Time and resources spent modeling the As-Is delay the delivery of the final project, and should only be done to the extent that they add value. In this article, we will discuss the purpose of as-is modeling, common pitfalls which lead to excessive effort and concrete guidance on how to improve results with less effort and expense. While studying, current practices can be valuable, the current process must be flawed or you wouldn’t be replacing it. The last thing you want to do is replicate the flaws of the existing solution.

Why do As-Is Modeling

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Once Again: Process Work is Strategic Work

Once Again: Process Work is Strategic Work

Author(s):

Partner, Performance Design Lab

A question that forever nags at thinkers and practitioners of BPM is its relationship to strategy.  In a recent book entitled Questioning BPM?*, one of 15 questions explored in the book was “Is BPM a strategic tool?”  Eleven authors agree there is, or should be, a strong relationship.  

The most common viewpoint among them is that BPM is necessary to an organization’s ability to execute its strategies.  No matter what the strategy is or how it came into being, it simply sits on a shelf gathering dust unless there are actions taken to carry it out.  And as soon as you enter the realm of action, an organization’s business processes are essential in executing the strategic intent.  To carry out a corporate-wide strategy necessitates doing so through a company’s large-scale end-to-end processes, and that in turn requires recognizing, designing and managing those processes, which is the essence of BPM. 

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