Business Architecture – College of Business

The College of Business is a complicated, multi-faceted system of people, processes, technologies, stakeholders and policies.  It is critical that the associate dean understand all of the organization’s dimensions.  A business architecture is defined as:

“a blueprint of the enterprise that provides a common understanding of the organization and is used to align strategic objectives and tactical demands.” (from  Object Management Group, Business Architecture Working Group)

Ultimately the business architecture provides an understanding of the organization by:

1. providing an understanding of what the business currently has (“as-is”)
2. providing an understanding of how the business fits into its environment
3. providing an understanding of where we want to go (road-map/”to-be”)

According to Chris Reynolds in the book “Introduction to Business Architecture”, defines 5 dimensions to the business architecture:

1. Goals: a clearly articulated set of goals for the business
2. Facades: a model that shows what the business looks like within its environment, including interactions the business offers to its customers and suppliers
3. Processes: a model that shows how the business needs to operate as a set of processes in order to support the interactions it exposes to the outside world
4. Communications: an understanding of the mandatory and appropriate communications between a business and its environment, as well as internal communications that would be relevant and important
5. Entities: an understanding of the information, in the form of business entities, that the business cares about, as well as interrelationships between the business entities that the business cares about.

My goal over the next six months is to apply the principles of business architecture to the College of Business.  I hope that BA will provide a better understanding of the gap/fit of the organization in its environment and its competition.  This should help clarify the right portfolio of projects to help the College of Business evolve toward its envisioned future state.