Building the Business Architecture Baseline

Representation of business architects evaluating capabilities and value streams

Published

05 April 2020

Updated

01 October 2023

Published In

Get simple guidance on how to create a successsful, scalable and industry-aligned business architecture baseline.

Get simple guidance on how to create a successsful, scalable and industry-aligned business architecture baseline. These resources articulate key concepts and approaches to help accelerate the development of a capability map, value streams and information map for your organization.

In This Collection

Hand holding magnifying glass suggesting a sleuth solving a mystery

The Unexplained Mystery of Business Architecture: What is Business Architecture

03 April 2017

According to the Federation of Enterprise Architecture Professional Organizations (FEAPO), “Business Architecture represents holistic, multidimensional business views of: capabilities, end-to-end value delivery, information, and organizational structure; and the relationships among these business views and strategies, products, policies, initiatives, and stakeholders.”

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A Map of the World, Part 1: Back to School With Mapping the Core Business Architecture Foundation

18 September 2017

Okay, time to go back to business architecture school. Having our business architecture written down is at the heart of us being able to do cool stuff with it, so we better talk a little more about mapping it out.

In this StraighTalk installment, we’re going to talk about the “core” business architecture domains. That means those four boxes in the middle of our favorite diagram below.

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Comparative table showing building versus using business architecture

Comparing Building Vs. Using Business Architecture

Downloadable Media

Icons showing hand giving thumbs up to capability map

What’s In A Word: How to Create a Capability Map That Unlocks New Value

06 May 2019

This StraightTalk installment shines a light on the realities of capability mapping and helps us to interpret some key concepts in the BIZBOK® Guide in an effort to move us forward in unison and architect great things for our organizations and societies.

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Icon showing three hands putting together puzzle pieces

Putting the Pieces Together: Business Objects As The Glue For A Business Architecture

20 May 2019

In this installment of StraightTalk, we return to the idea of business objects, and the important role they play throughout an organization’s business architecture – and why it matters. We will do some serious condensing here of the BIZBOK® Guide to help you put the pieces together and understand how it all works. Why? Well, not for the sake of theory. That’s not what StraightTalk is about. We’re about helping to build a common understanding so that we can all move forward in unison. And architect great things for our organizations and societies, which is the point.

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The Value Mindset: Demystifying the Business Architecture Value Stream

21 September 2020

This installment of StraightTalk demystifies what a business architecture value stream is and is not, and breaks it all down StraightTalk-style.

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Settle Claim Value Stream – Origami Style

Downloadable Media

The Enterprise Advocate: How Business Architecture Brings Clarity to Customers and Products

04 November 2019

In order to compete and operate effectively, an organization must have clarity on who their customers are and what products they offer – and this must be consistently understood by every person so they know who they are serving and how they fit within the bigger picture. An organization’s business architecture is front and center to providing this clarity, which is what we explore throughout this installment of StraightTalk.

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Icon showing hand holding mobile device with hashtag on screen

Ecosystem Is The New Organization: How Business Architecture #Capabilities and #ValueStreams Can Connect Everything

03 June 2019

In this StraightTalk installment, we will explore how business architecture can help to architect ecosystems. The idea of business ecosystems is a huge topic unto itself, so we’ll highlight a few key ideas here in our usual StraightTalk style and then let you dream big.

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Icon showing clapping hands for a speed skater

Speedy Business Architecture, Part 1 — Accelerating Business Architecture Development With Reference Models

19 February 2018

We know that the business architecture knowledgebase is fundamental to the enterprise insights, analysis and ways of designing that are unique only to architecture. But how do we build our knowledgebase fast—especially if we’re just starting our business architecture practice? In this installment of StraightTalk, we talk about how we can leverage reference models to accelerate the development of a business architecture knowledgebase, so here goes.

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Speedy Business Architecture, Part 2 — Accelerating Business Architecture Development With Tools

05 March 2018

In this installment of StraightTalk, we talk about how we can leverage tools for accelerating the development of a business architecture knowledgebase.

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Icons showing three hands holding up signs representing good, bad and ugly

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Dos and Don’ts For Establishing a Business Architecture Practice

01 April 2019

This installment gives you the straight talk on some serious dos and don’ts for establishing a business architecture practice within an organization. We’ll ground our conversation by reflecting on a fundamental concept of the business architecture discipline — often misunderstood — that will assist in guiding you and help you to stay on the right path.

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Icon showing hand hold paper with stakeholder in the center of map

Raison d‘être: The How and Why of Business Architecture Stakeholder Mapping

17 February 2020

In this installment of StraightTalk, we’re going to explore a sometimes overlooked but all-important domain for the business architecture baseline: stakeholders. Stakeholder mapping techniques came on the scene and matured a bit later than some of the others, so it’s a good time to revisit them and their valuable role in the business architecture.

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Us and Us: “The Business Architecture of IT”

17 June 2019

Once business architecture starts getting traction within an organization, there often comes a question: “Does IT have a business architecture?” This installment of StraightTalk explores this concept of “the business architecture of IT.”

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Hit the Ground Running! Business Architecture Development

18 November 2019

This Cutter Consortium report describes how business architecture professionals can accelerate the development of their organization’s business architecture. Learn how to build the knowledgebase in an eﬃcient way, leverage reference models that help jumpstart the business architecture, and utilize tools that enable scale and robust usage of the knowledgebase across the organization. By leveraging solid business architecture know-how, practitioners will be fully equipped to deliver business value across the entire strategy execution lifecycle.

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What is Business Architecture? Business Architecture Simplified and Differentiated

20 March 2017

Even though formalization has taken root in the discipline, confusion still exists about what business architecture really is—and is not. This tight, well-organized, essential white paper assists the reader in cutting through the myriad of content available on the topic of business architecture. This publication is intended for Business Architecture Practice Leaders and Practitioners. It is also helpful for executives or any other business or IT roles who would like to gain a more in-depth understanding of business architecture. Original Publish Date: 20 Mar 2017 Revised: 25 April 2018.

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