Business Architect

Definition

Business Architect

the specialized architect role that is played when a person develops the architecture for a customer organization’s business enterprise

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, Business Architect is part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Concrete
• Superclass: Architect
• Subclasses:
  • None

Responsibilities

The typical role-specific responsibilities of a Business Architect are to:

• Understand current business architecture.
• Produce new business object and process models.
• Develop and communicate the new business architecture:
  • Identify and develop a business case and strategy for future applications.
  • Determine the major components of the reengineered business enterprise.
  • Determine the mechanisms by which these components will collaborate in order to fulfill its operational and quality requirements.
• Develop and communicate a strategy for relationships with other organizations and endeavors.
• Develop business transition and communication plans.

Business Architect typically inherits common role responsibilities from the Role method component.

Expertise

To fulfill these responsibilities, a Business Architect typically should have the following expertise:

• Deep knowledge of business and strategic marketing.
• Strong in strategic and analytical thinking.
• Able to see and understand:
  • The context of the business architecture.
  • The big picture without being caught up in diversionary details.
  • Beyond the obvious.
  • Patterns or connections between situations that are not obviously related.
  • Key or underlying issues in complex situations.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Solid experience in several of the following:
  • Business
  • Marketing
  • Business process reengineering (BPR)
• A bachelor’s degree or better in one of the above areas.

Tasks

A Business Architect typically performs the following role-specific tasks in an iterative, incremental, parallel, and time-boxed manner:

• Architecting Tasks:
  • Business Object Modeling (Current and Reengineered Business)
  • Business Process Modeling (Current and Reengineered Business)
  • Application Identification
  • Business Case Development
  • Application Selection
  • Application Prioritization
  • Business Transition Planning
  • Architecture Documentation
• Quality Engineering Tasks:
  • Quality Control - Digital Branding Evaluation
  • Quality Control - Business Strategy Evaluation
  • Quality Control - Technology Strategy Evaluation

Business architects typically inherit common role tasks from the role process component.

Teams

A Business architect typically performs these tasks as a member of the following teams:

• Business Strategy Team
• Strategy Evaluation Team

Work Products

As a member of these teams, a Business Architect typically produces all or part of the following work products:

• Architecture Work Products:
  • CRC Cards
  • Business Object Model
  • Business Process Model
  • Business Organization Chart
  • Application Business Case
  • Application Strategy
  • Relationship Strategy
  • Business Architecture Document
  • Business Transition Plan
• Quality Work Products:
  • Inspection Report
  • Inspection Summary Report
• Deployment Work Products:
  • Business Communication Plan

Guidelines

• Business architects are only required on business reengineering endeavors.
• This role typically inherits the common team guidelines from the Role method component.