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Thread: Business / Enterprise Architecture - Views please

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    Commercial Operator Gus's Avatar
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    Business / Enterprise Architecture - Views please

    Having spent the last 3 yaers of my career developing a Business Analysis capability at my current employer, my thoughts are turning to 'whats next'. The career path from BA isn't clear (and NO, moving into Project Management is NOT an advancement) but I've been very interested in the emerging area of Business Architecture. The problem is, as with all ermeging disciplines, to establish which horse to follow. There is TOGAF, the ISEB qualification or the IASA. Any forumites with any experience or views of this area?

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    Re: Business / Enterprise Architecture - Views please

    May not be of any help Gus, I work for a FTSE 250 IT company with some big ticket managed service contracts, data centre virtualisations, etc and ITIL is huge and appears to be the industry standard our customers expect from us.

    Let me know if you want any more information.

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    Re: Business / Enterprise Architecture - Views please

    ITIL is huge, is excellent and is about IT service management. It's got bugger all to do with Enterprise Architecture, and is particularly helpless in the Business Architecture space.

    Business Architecture is (to me) about translating business strategy and understanding its impacts, opportunities and challenges to the organisation in a number of dimensions: people, processes, premises, products, channels, customers. A good Business Architect can tell you (at a very high level) which products will be sold through which channels to which customers by which staff, and whether those products are manufactured in-house, through a BPO style partnership or through a supply chain, both now and in the future, and thus the contents of any transformation plan or roadmap to achieve a defined target end state that achieves the business strategy. (Someone else picks up the implementation of that change.)

    Enterprise Architecture _is_ business architecture. It just tags on the technical architectural dimensions to the views above: information, applications, data centres, voice and data networks.

    Most large companies acknowledge and want EA, but few implement an EA function properly. The biggest issue is a massive gap in the business architecture space - most EA teams are populated by IT architects and end up focussing on the IT dimensions to the neglect of the business views. So if you want to be a business architect there's definitely a need for your skills, but you may find it frustrating in a large company EA team.

    TOGAF 9 differs from 8 primarily through significantly greater focus on the business views, so it's already helping, and definitely worth running through the material. The problem for me is that either it'll be formalising and validating your extant skills and knowledge or you'll struggle to understand and apply it - the archictecture roles tend to benefit more from experience. It's superb CV fodder but get your company to pay for it - it's not cheap.

    The IASA is focussed on IT architecture and has existed for less than a decade. It's interesting to watch its progress but wont help much in the business architecture space (although any CV fodder is worthwhile).

    ISEB may be good CV fodder in the public sector, but their EA material is a conversion of their business process re-engineering material. Whether BPM and process optimisation is part of EA or a distinct discipline tends to depend who you ask but I don't perceive any value in ISEB. BCS CITP is excellent for getting you through HR filters but distrust anybody that pretends it has serious credibility.

    If you're a good business analyst then business architecture is a viable and very interesting career option. The two best approaches are probably via a mature EA function at a stable (ish) company, where you can learn from a team that's already practicing the discipline and can get you up and running literally 2-3 years quicker than trying to start from scratch, or through a consultancy. The consultancy will give you a better long term career option but less business architecture work - one issue with EA teams is that they are very small, often have no direct reports, and so tend to be extremely senior with no easy promotion routes.

    If you want to kick it off as a discipline at your current employer, it'll be a long a difficult journey. There are a few strategies you could follow and if there's already an appetite for an EA or BA function then obviously that'll help.

    Happy to answer further questions, but this sort of discussion is probably best offline.

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    Re: Business / Enterprise Architecture - Views please

    Looks like you’ve been busy on Google or are you going to try and pass off all that as retained knowledge or original thought. You could have looked smart passing off your Googled information without being rude, plus you’re wrong, ITIL is an industry specific framework employing BA principles.

    Ever seen Good Will Hunting, you’re the smart arse in the Harvard bar giving it the bigun and just like in the film I’m the one that will always get the girl.

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    Re: Business / Enterprise Architecture - Views please

    ITIL® is the most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world.
    from http://www.itil-officialsite.com/home/home.asp

    Trust me, I love ITIL. It's great. It's not business architecture.

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    Re: Business / Enterprise Architecture - Views please

    But is it an industry specific framework employing BA principles ?

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    Re: Business / Enterprise Architecture - Views please

    I don't mind people using that description, although I wouldn't ever try and sell it that way myself. "Employing BA principles" forces the question of what business architecture principles might be, and although I could (and have in the past) happily propose a candidate set they wouldn't be applicable to all organisations or necessarily to an IT services company keen to emphasise its ITIL credentials.

    I think ITIL seeks to clearly delineate specific IT roles and make it easier to define, understand and improve processes in various IT disciplines. It doesn't cover all of IT, and I've yet to see a non-IT person that's ITIL trained or accredited.

    A business architecture method, process, framework or approach must consider a far broader scope. This is why the TOGAF 8 to TOGAF 9 revision did almost nothing in the IT space, why Zachman's framework can be used by a company with no IT department, why there is debate whether BPI (and approaches such as Six Sigma) is part of business architecture or just tightly coupled to it.

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    Re: Business / Enterprise Architecture - Views please

    Quote Originally Posted by cederic View Post
    from http://www.itil-officialsite.com/home/home.asp

    Trust me, I love ITIL. It's great. It's not business architecture.
    AHem ... apolgiues for my absence ... combination of poor wifi connection, Xmas duties and still recuperating from shoulder operation (including interesting side effects of cocodamol).

    ANYWAY ... I must admit as aBA I've never come across any meaningfull invovement from ITIL. I've tended to only see ITIL in relation to application chamge management. Howveer, this ,may well be simple ignorance on my part.

    For Business analysis, the mainstay has been the ISEB (part of BCS) training and, increasingly BABOK from our American cousins. Re Biz Archirectucture, well that another level beyond.

    I've read some interesting debate on the relevant forums, especially from some officious 'expert' who stated that BA's having nothing to do with Biz Arch, stating a number of BizArch only activities ... which me and my team are actively involved in :-). However, I'm yet to be disuaded from the view that there IS much to be learnt from the Theory side, especially from IASA, and look forwasrd to catching up with cedric offline to gain from his experience and point of view.

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