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The idea is to draw architecture or infrastructure diagrams using the same images / icons as in the Blue Prism vendor literature and documentation. For example icons to represent BP server, Runtime Resource, robotic user and so on.
Has anyone made a personal set or seen something like this out in the wild? I'm not talking about the stencils that come w/ Geodatabase Diagrammer (which is really for the internal structure of a GDB) rather when you're trying to architect an enterprise GIS system and want to illustrate Geodatabases on database servers, arcgis servers, map services, clients, etc.
Nonetheless, this thinking is ubiquitous in business and responsible for many failed transformation initiatives. To debunk the notion once and for all, we decided to explain in the clearest terms possible why office tools cannot support a value-producing enterprise architecture practice.
The business reality is changing, and the ability to plan effectively for the future, make sound strategic decisions, and adopt and foster an agile enterprise is becoming more valuable by the day. The sooner you act on it, the more advantage you have over your competition.
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Cited as one of the most adaptable tools on the market today, ABACUS supports over 100+ frameworks and notations. Organizations from a wide range of industries, sectors, and maturity levels can create context-rich roadmaps and strategies. Build models and architectures specific to the structure and requirements of your business.
Analytical, results-oriented IS/IT Audit, Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) leader over 19 years of experience managing enterprise-wide IT/IS security risk approach for large healthcare and IT services organizations. Passionate design thinker with an ability to harness innovation by facilitating collaboration to develop enterprise-wide security risk assessments (onsite as well as remote) for high-risk Third-Parties leveraging NIST 800-...
More and more Enterprise Architecture (EA) teams are waking up to the fact that they need to invest in data and a dedicated data-driven EA tool. Data plays a critical role in keeping strategies agile and anchoring decisions and roadmaps for the organization.
Deciding on an EA tool is a serious investment. While the cost is one factor, EAs should also consider the substantial time and effort teams will need to sink into a tool to build out models of the whole enterprise and maintain data. Therefore, when deciding on a tool, the big question is whether a given EA tool meets organizational objectives.
Most Enterprise Architecture tools are built around standards, from modeling and architecture frameworks to references and data interchange. However, in practice, few EA practitioners adhere strictly to these standards.
In fact, the problems faced by Enterprise Architecture tools are exactly the same as the problems that led to the emergence of the NoSQL database. Input data formats are too variable, Extract-Transform-Load is too costly and takes too long, imposing data standards is painful, and the whole landscape changes too fast. The conventional RDBMS is simply too rigid to model the fast-evolving organic enterprise ecosystem.
The same reason drives the need for both graph databases and data visualization. The exponential rate of enterprise change, and the growth of diversity of data input and of requirement outputs from the Enterprise Architecture tools means that older technologies and methods, already underperforming, simply cannot scale. They break.
Business architecture is something that many people have heard about, but only a few truly grasp its essence. It often causes confusion about what it really is, how it benefits an organization, and what makes a successful model. This guide will help you implement a business architecture approach that's effective, efficient, and integrated with all the other strategic elements of your organization.
Organizations are made up of several distinct operating functions. Different departments and business areas have their own unique contributions to the success of the entire enterprise. But those functions cannot operate in isolation. They must be integrated - connected to each other in a way that optimizes the ability to deliver value and achieve the organization's strategic priorities. This is where business architecture comes in.
There are several different formal definitions of business architecture, but rather than worry about theories, think of it as the discipline that demonstrates how key organizational elements - people, process, information, applications and so on, work together to define an enterprise. Understanding these relationships helps an organization to identify areas of opportunity, develop roadmaps for evolution, and ultimately connect its strategies with the operation of the business.
Implemented effectively, business architecture is a critical component of strategic portfolio management (SPM) and helps to connect strategic objectives with work execution and tactical demands in a more effective, value focused manner that ultimately drives improved business performance. As such it must be viewed as a strategic, business-focused discipline that covers all organizational elements.
Business architecture is a multifaceted discipline. To optimize its value, it is necessary to consider the business from a number of different perspectives, combining each of those perspectives to fully understand the organization as it exists today, and how it needs to evolve into the future. The elements that must be considered to be successful are:
Value streams are a sequence of activities - that cut across and connect siloed business capabilities - that are required to deliver a product, service, or experience to a customer. They are also one of the most important elements of business architecture. They provide an easily understood visualization of how an organization achieves value through a self-contained set of activities, and as such a map of a single value stream can easily contribute to an executive presentation or similar use case.
Process modeling is one of the most established elements of business architecture. Many organizations have been trying to define their business processes for some time, without considering it as a part of a broader approach. In their most traditional format, they describe the components in business processes with additional information provided in the form of swimlanes, color coding, etc. that define ownership or type of activity.
However, in the context of business architecture, the true value of process modeling comes from the combination of process models with other elements. This provides the ability to drill down into additional detail - say starting with a value stream and then exploring the elements of a value stage in that stream in more detail before exploring an individual process within a given stage.
Effective business architecture must go beyond simply visualizing what an organization does and how it does it. It also needs to help the organization understand where the strengths and weaknesses are, where adjustments need to be made, and how well current or proposed initiatives are contributing to progress. You can't do that simply by documenting what exists, and that's where maturity modeling comes in.
Most of the challenges preventing business architects from succeeding come back to areas that are addressed by an enterprise-wide SPM approach. As a result, business architecture is most effective when considered in the context of broader SPM and business strategy - effectively planning and delivering to optimize value in a continuously evolving environment.
Unless the entire organization understands the strategic priorities and how they are intended to be achieved, there is a lack of focus which makes it impossible for business architects to enable alignment of all organizational elements. This also requires alignment between business architecture and related, but distinct, enterprise architecture tools. If that alignment is missing it is likely to compound challenges around business strategy.
Historic approaches to strategic planning have encouraged the persistence of departmental and functional silos, allowing business units to operate with considerable autonomy and failing to force alignment with organizational priorities. Those silos act as barriers to effective business architecture and prevent the synergy that can be created by effective organization-wide integration of all elements.
Business architecture is a whole enterprise discipline, not an IT function. However, its elements require the effective use of technology across all business areas and with a business context. Unless IT is viewed (by IT and business leaders) as an extension of the business, that will never be achieved.
1. Organization: As you would expect, the organization is the structure of the enterprise that business architecture is being applied to. The organization is made up of business units that combine to represent all functions and departments within the enterprise.
2. Capabilities: A business architecture context is the definition of what an organization does or can do. There are multiple capabilities, each of which is unique. Capabilities are the building blocks of what the organization does.
Business architecture is a discipline that organizations sometimes find themselves backing into. Rather than consciously committing to develop the discipline, they simply expand their use of process modeling for their business processes, they begin to consider their business in terms of value streams as an additional analysis tool, etc.
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