Gregg Rock interviews George Barlow in April 2022.
GR: I wondering as practitioners, what do you think that we can do to help raise the profile of the Business Architecture discipline?
SL: Well, success in Business Architecture just like in any other discipline, is to a large extent, a matter of attitude. In my view, business architects need to approach every new client and every new assignment both with optimism and with curiosity. But, also with an understanding and an acceptance of the fact that they will have to provide a good dose of education as to what Business Architecture is, how it relates to IT, how it relates to strategic planning, and so on.
Do the math. We all spend a significant percentage of our lives at work. And, based on this poster by Charles Schwab and the state of the Government’s finances, we are all going to be working even longer. So as leaders it is our role to make sure that the lives of our staff are valuable and rewarding, if not fun.
People have incredible levels of drive, ability, and enthusiasm (as evidently clear by the videos that pop up in my social media feeds), and we need to harness that.
Thought: Why is happy hour just an hour and happens after work?
There has been a lot of research recently that is showing that (wait for it…) happy employees are more productive. I guess we knew that instinctively, but now studies are putting some data behind the feeling.
Gregg Rock interviews Ed Hunt in November 2021.
GR: The question I have for you is, why is business architecture so important to IT delivery?
EH: Well that is obviously an important question. Today’s businesses are a collection of independent, complex operations organized to provide value to the customer. And, each business entity is competing within the larger business ecosystem in order to offer a unique value proposition and then remain relevant to the market.
No longer are we just audit using technology to automate existing process document and automate existing processing, we’re using it to drive transformation. And, as I like to say the transformed organization, by definition, doesn’t exist.
We have to convert from de-scribing to pre-scribing, and that’s the critical role of the business architect.
Gregg Rock interviews George Barlow in April 2022.
GR: In your experience, do you find that organizations understand the value of Business Architecture, or is it a bit of a learning curve?
SL: The standard consulting response is that it depends. Some to, and some don’t. From what I’ve seen, organizations that are rich in workflows and in business roles, such as insurers, claims adjusters, lenders, transportation companies, they tend to have a greater appreciation for what Business Architecture can provide. Now, some of them start with a business reference architecture and tailor it to fit their way of doing business, others develop their own business process models usually, but not always, in a top down fashion.
GR: What do you think the future holds for Business Architecture and what do we have to do to stay in lockstep with the future needs of the organization and the advances we’re seeing in technology?
SL: In one of my articles published on the Business Architecture Institute’s website, I was making the case that the traditional methods that make up the standard Business Architecture canon, they tend to assume a slow changing, relatively predictable, business environment. A business environment where you don’t have major shocks to the system, major external or internal upheavals, essentially an environment that can wait for the business architect to do the architecting.
GR: What originally attracted you to the Business Architecture discipline, and what does Business Architecture mean for you?
SL: Well Gregg, to me gravitating towards Business Architecture has really been a natural evolution. My career started with an education in computer science, followed by a few years of software development, and from there I quickly realized that analyzing and distilling the customers requirements was a lot more interesting than coding the spec. And then, moreover, understanding the why behind the requirements, and that the needs that drove the requirements was even more interesting. Being able to correlate those needs with the customers business mission, business processes, supporting system, and data architecture while having that bird’s eye view of the whole texture of the organization was extremely compelling.
Have I grabbed your attention? Yes, ‘Look How Far I Have Come’ is a song title from the renowned Broadway Musical, Hamilton, but it is also a phrase used by many of us to highlight or showcase their careers and their life progression.
An example perhaps is “I am the CIO now, and this did not happen overnight. Look how far I have come.” In IT, this is used in a similar fashion. From legacy systems, even before, to today—it’s human nature. Look how far we have come, and where we have come from. We were once students getting in line at the University’s computer science dept’ to punch cards for a lousy Fortran IV application, which may have been for a homework or for a midterm/final, and now we drag and drop to put together an app or a UI (a GUI) for iOS or Android. A huge progress, a long journey (not that long ago actually), on our path to excellence, right?
…Sounds obvious, but it is more expensive than you know
Interestingly enough, the true cost of poor process is not in doing the process badly. Clearly there is some cost there, but often it is the knock-on effect that the poor process has on other areas of the company, the downstream of the problem, which is the real cost multiplier.
However, this is rarely calculated. If you have poorly documented and followed processes, you won’t even be able to identify the potential costs downstream—let alone measure them. (Note: processes must be documented AND followed to be valuable). So, like an iceberg, you only see a small part of the problem at surface level. Assuming an iceberg is a problem is looking at an iceberg from the Titanic’s rather than the penguin’s perspective.
Everyone starts here.
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