Applying Enterprise Business Architecture - Online

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Course Description:

Add visibility into your enterprise for better decision making by building a business architecture framework and applying more strategic business analysis techniques.

First of all, why should my company or those companies I support apply an enterprise business architecture?
This three-day workshop offers a breadth of topics covering enterprise-wide analysis while drilling down into the business architecture. There are many key benefits for focusing on the business architecture, it:

• Decreases costs of business analysis activities for projects
• Decreases scope gaps and portfolio management conflicts
• Improves business decision making and the visibility of business process opportunities
• Assures alignment of technology to business valued processes
• Improves communications
• Shortens time for business transformations
• Reduces technology investment risks
• Assists in requirements tracking
• Increases reusability of assets

Alright then, how might this workshop help me if I don't have a company that is implementing an enterprise business architecture?
The business architecture has many components and artifacts. They might not all be applicable to every enterprise. The techniques and tools that you will apply in the workshop can be tailored to your specific company's environment. The key is to gain a "good enough" understanding so that you can communicate the benefits of relevant business architecture components and artifacts and know which will provide the biggest business value.

Many of these initiatives will take years to implement while changing the enterprise paradigm to effectively utilize the result. Managers tend to be assigned to these initiatives without the knowledge or skills to make them successful. Be ready for these enterprise initiatives! Assure business value when transitioning from strategy to tactical. Participants will learn to identify the best approach to use based on initiative characteristics and business strategies.

You will learn how to:

• Be a strategic advisor for both business and technology organizations
• Leverage architectural models to bridge business units and technology organizations
• Work with product owners to identify gaps between business capabilities and product roadmaps
• Build a business architecture that meets the needs of your enterprise
• Use techniques and tools to build business architecture components and artifacts
• Define scope of initiatives through the reuse of architectural components
• Identify problems and opportunities using the business architecture
• Justify opportunities and assess feasibility of proposed solutions
• Apply architectural principles to business opportunities
• Capture stakeholder views and business requirements
• Assess solution alternatives
• Assess and present alternative solutions for decision making, buy-in and approval
• Assist in portfolio management prioritization
• Assure alignment by tracking the opportunity's business value and vision from strategy to implementation
• Communicate the business architecture and present solutions to management

Who Should Attend Business Architecture Training?

Regardless of whether you reside in the business domain or technology domain, if you need an enterprise view of the business and want to assure business' strategies are realized, you need to be in this workshop. Your current role may be a:

• Business Analyst – participates in pre-project initiatives, cross-functional projects, and large complex initiatives.
• Business or Functional Managers - those assigned to take on cross-functional initiatives as a subject matter expert, project manager, or business analyst.
• Product and Process Owners – those who manage the enterprise's products and product lifecycles and want to better understand how business and technology must work together to support those products.
• Program Managers or Project Managers – those who need to drive solutions and assure success for an initiative, especially for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) initiatives.
• Solution Architects – those who look for solutions to resolve enterprise problems.
• Technical Architects (Application, Infrastructure or Information) – those who need the big picture of the enterprise in order to align with the business and be able to clearly communicate associated technology risks and constraints.

You will gain significant skills, techniques and knowledge at the enterprise level that will not only provide value to your company but also improve your own future career opportunities.

Prerequisites

n/a

Course Outline:

I. Architecture Key Concepts

Workshop participants will be introduced to some key terms and the value proposition for building a business architecture. Industry best practices are introduced.

• Workshop Glossary
• Why Business Architecture
• Value of Key Components
• Business Need for Subsets and Stakeholder Views
• Business Architecture in Context with other Enterprise Architectures
• Industry Best Practice Frameworks and Methodologies
• Reusing Organizational Assets

Hands-On Exercises:

1. Terminology and asset gap assessment
2. Which components would you use and why
3. Which framework would you use and why

II. Prepare to Build a Business Architecture

There is a general approach to creating any architecture. We will step through the approach needed to build a business architecture, but before we do there is a few steps of preparation! Do we know if we have the competencies to perform in this role? Is our organization ready to support the effort?

• Business Architecture Maturity Model and Governance Processes
• Needed Individual and Organizational Competencies
• Review or Assist in Creation of Inputs
• Business and Operating Models, Balanced Score Card and Strategies
• Identify Artifacts (Static or Dynamic and Granularity Level)
• Identify Applicable Techniques, Tools and Notations
• Architecture Development and Transition Roadmap (High Level Plan with Iterations to Future State)

Hands-On Exercises:

1. Current state competency assessment
2. Facilitate creation of a business model based on scenario

III. Build a Business Architecture – Models and Maps

The business architecture artifacts must contain graphics, matrices, maps or any visuals that can assist in stakeholder communications and in uncovering improvement opportunities. These are just a few that have been integrated in the workshop. Others may be discussed by the facilitator depending on workshop participant interest.

• Business Process Models
• Capability and Services Map
• Organizational Model
• Value Streams
• Alignment Maps (e.g. Alignment to information or technology architectural components)
• Ownership Matrices

Hands-On Exercises:

1. Build a Current State Model
2. Build a Business Capability Map

IV. Build a Business Architecture – Techniques, Tools and Methods

There are many techniques and tools that can assist us in building a business architecture. Typically only a few of these are used. Which techniques and tools will depend on the maturity of the enterprise, governance processes and availability of organizational assets. Others may be discussed by the facilitator depending on workshop participant interest.

• Document Analysis
• Benchmarks and Surveys
• SWOT Analysis and Other Business Decision Making Tools
• Business Event Analysis
• Business Policy Identification
• Measures and Metrics
• Review and Obtain Approvals

Hands-On Exercises:

1. Identify the Domain under Discussion
2. Build a Future State Model

V. Analyze at the Enterprise Level

The business architectures gives you the information needed to look for areas of improvement; whether it is reducing redundancy of processes across business units, reducing cycle times, or responding to competition with new products and services. We start with eliciting high level requirements for the solution by facilitating the future state and uncovering the solution scope boundaries. Further high level solution idea generation and solution assessment will help us to provide an initial estimate to justify recommendations.

• Applying Root Cause Analysis and Questioning Techniques
• Identify Problems and Clarify Vision Statements
• Uncover Business Requirements
• Defining Scope and Applying Stakeholder Views for Analysis
• Generate and Assess Solution Alternatives
• Estimate and Document Assumptions (Delphi Technique)

Hands-On Exercises:

1. Create a problem or vision statement
2. Identify the domain under discussion and generate solution ideas
3. Estimate and document assumptions for a solution alternative

VI. Justify and Communicate

At the enterprise level, some justification is necessary to obtain funding and resources in addition to providing a method to equally compare and prioritize the businesses portfolios. The opportunity assessments and analysis conducted in the previous workshop session will provide the necessary information to justify moving forward. But it doesn't end there. The business architecture assets must be revisited and kept up-to-date. The enterprise must be able to trust the information for future use.

• Moving from Strategy to Tactical
• Creating a Business Case and Feasibility Study
• Tracking Business Value
• Assisting in Prioritization Efforts
• Hints and Tips for Presenting Solutions to Management Teams
• Keeping the Business Architecture Dynamic
• Other Industry "Hot Topics" and its Influence on the Business Architecture (AGILE, SOA, ITIL, ICLOUD, etc.)

Hands-On Exercises:

1. Present a solution to an executive committee
2. Identify impacts to the business architecture based on a scenario
3. Optional depending on available time: Identify any technique or tool for more practice