Three Basic Principles for Business Architecture
Here are what I firmly believe are three basic principles for business architecture. To me they are just common sense, but they are certainly not so common in prevailing industry practices.
1. Business architecture should be of, by and for the business. (Otherwise, why add the modifier “business”?!). Our rule of thumb is that if business people don’t use a methodology term naturally, then it has no place in *business* architecture. Ever hear a business person use the term “business use case” or simply “use case” without prompting from IT?! The technique is an obvious misfit for *business* architecture. This is simply a case of IT trying to elevate its own tools to a problem it frankly often doesn’t understand.
2. The blueprinting techniques used for business architecture should apply exactly the same no matter how wide the scope – project, business process, whole business, whole supply chain, etc. These are all business problems (first), just sitting in different ecosystems. Also, it should make no difference whether automation is anticipated or not. (Actually, running business operations by hand may be harder in some respects than if automated. Anyway, systems do sometimes go down.) If a blueprinting approach fails in these regards, it’s not about *business* architecture.
3. A major shortcoming in most current approaches is the absence of attention to specifying semantics and knowledge. These need not be interpreted as anything arcane – they’re not. Basically, ‘semantics and knowledge’ simply means defining business vocabulary – words – in an organized manner, and practicable rules to run the business by. Now what business person hasn’t heard of “words”, “definitions”, and “rules”?! Yet traditional IT methods treat them as alien (or not at all). In a day and age of IBM Watson, how could such practices not be seen as archaic?!
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P.S. Yes, such blueprinting techniques for business architecture do exist, and we practice them – in-depth – all the time with our clients. This is what our book Building Business Solutions: Business Analysis with Business Rules (http://www.brsolutions.com/b_building_business_solutions.php) is all about, as well as our on-line training based on it (http://www.attainingedge.com/online-training-business-analysis-with-business-rules.php).
www.BRSolutions.com
Tags: blueprinting, business architecture, business blueprint, business model, business model vs system model, business use case, knowledge, semantics, use case
Ronald G. Ross
Ron Ross, Principal and Co-Founder of Business Rules Solutions, LLC, is internationally acknowledged as the “father of business rules.” Recognizing early on the importance of independently managed business rules for business operations and architecture, he has pioneered innovative techniques and standards since the mid-1980s. He wrote the industry’s first book on business rules in 1994.
Putcha V. Narasimham
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Ron:
I agree with all the three basic principles of business. You may like to check http://www.iso-architecture.org on what “architecture” really is and how it applies to any system including “business”.
The specifics that are relevant to “business” need to be spelt out for clarity and practice
There is an interesting discussion on business architecture as an extension of the discussion started by Paul Harmon on LinkedIn. I do not recall seeing your posts there. Please take a look. You may find a lot that you can use here.
Best wishes,
Putcha V. Narasimham
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Ron: Here is the link to the discussion I mentioned in the previous post.
http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=5806634564533104641&gid=1175137&commentID=5813698579407056896&trk=view_disc&fromEmail=&ut=0hq6vf8CXAwS01