What is Business Architecture? – Roger Burlton discusses BA

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A lot of buzz about Business Architecture recently sounds suspiciously familiar but some of it sounds like a breath of fresh air. Ultimately it is about the business itself with many perspectives converging; being able to clearly articulate what we strive to accomplish (the ends) and what we have to build, connect and do (the means).

Roger Burlton, President, Process Renewal Group
Roger will be presenting the course ‘Digital Process Analysis and Design: Optimizing the Customer Experience through Digital Innovation‘ 19-20 March 2020, London and ‘Business Architecture Best Practices: Practical Methods to Enable Business Change‘ 23-25 March 2020, London
Roger will also be speaking at IRM UK’s Business Change and Transformation Conference Europe, 16-18 March 2020, London on Freedom Within a Framework

Alignment among many moving parts characterizes this emerging and converging practice. To attain unification of all capabilities Business Processes will play a key role. Alignment of a value added, practical and implementable Business Architecture and Business Change Portfolio will be our payoff but without process coordination nothing will change much.

A useful Business Architecture will understand all the external pressures on the organization, know what is needed by external stakeholders, will derive strategic goals from external stakeholder expectations. All capability requirements will be tied to the processes that create or update data to ensure alignment to business objectives. The human requirements of roles, competencies, incentives, motivation and culture will optimize process outcomes. With all of these components defined and aligned, we will have a Business Architecture that works for business people.

Business Process and Capability Improvement initiatives should re-use the content of the Business Architecture to select, scope, and execute business process change projects. Stakeholder analysis and performance metrics as well as cultural assessment results will drive business analysis using process and related models decomposed from the architecture. Analysis of measurement data traceable to the top of the business performance scorecard will help to find symptoms and causes of poor performance critical to realizing the business intent and the processes and capabilities needed. Aligned implementation and change management plans can now be established and a cultural change program launched to ensure the business changes will stick. This highly participative workshop will delve into all aspects of Business Architecture, Business Processes and Business Capabilities from top to bottom.

Roger Burlton is the President of Process Renewal Group and co-founder of BPTrends Associates. He is the author of the pioneering book ‘Business Process Management: Profiting from Process’ and the standard ‘Business Process Manifesto’, now available in 14 languages. His Business Architecture column in BPTrends.com is available to over twenty thousand readers. He developed and delivered the first Business Process and Business Architecture management classes in the world in 1991, certified today by universities in North America, Europe, Australia and South America and registered with IIBA as an official training source. He is is recognized as a world leader in transforming companies from traditional hierarchical organisations to process managed ones based on a Business Architecture model. He has led numerous initiatives to implement new business models, governance frameworks and process management capabilities for global corporations and government agencies. He continues to chair the most prominent business process conferences around the world which he has done on over forty occasions. Roger also contributed to the BABOK version 3 in the area of business process improvement. Follow Roger on Twitter @RogerBurlton.

Copyright Roger Burlton, President, Process Renewal Group

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