How to Socialize Business Architecture

This installment of StraightTalk provides you with loads of practical tips, secrets, and hacks for business architecture socialization based on the collective wisdom of business architecture practitioners around the world.

In this installment of StraightTalk, we will explore some ways that you can start putting business architecture into use ASAP to provide business value — while you continue to build up your knowledgebase and pursue more complex usage scenarios over time. The intention here is to give you some starter ideas that inspire you to create many more of your own.

Welcome to Part 1 of 3 within our visual and storytelling StraightTalk series. When we think about our business architecture practices, or even our competencies as business architects, we often focus on developing and using business architecture. While that is indeed the heart of what we do, to be successful, there are many other things we need to be good at—like presenting information both visually and verbally. This is our first installment in the series and we will explore presentation design.

Welcome to Part 2 of 3 within our visual and storytelling StraightTalk series. This is the second installment in the series where we explore how we can leverage two highly engaging, visual techniques – graphic recording and graphic facilitation – as part of our business architecture practice. What we can achieve with business architecture is only as good as our ability to communicate, influence, and connect with other people. The two powerful illustrative techniques allow us to do so on a human level that raises our collective understanding.

In this installment of StraightTalk, we will explore another important topic to making a business architecture practice successful: business politecture. Yep, that is business architecture + politics = business politecture.

What is business architecture really about? And why can it be so hard for others to understand its value and see what business architects see? This installment of StraightTalk aims to provide some context for what happens to many of us on a daily basis and why. The ideas shared here are just a start and should be considered as the beginning of a conversation for us to come together around messaging and a movement that can help fuel the adoption of business architecture.

Welcome to the third and last installment of our epic visual and storytelling StraightTalk series, in which we explore the power of story. We know that in order to succeed as business architects, it’s not just about creating architectures and ideas for the future – we also need to convey those ideas, influence others, and incite action. Enter storytelling.

As a newer role on the scene, working in a business world ubiquitous with design, digital, agile and other emerging concepts, the way we show up as business architects matters a lot. Because everything we do and say demonstrates to others what business architecture really is, and we need to be relevant and distinguish ourselves. The success of a business architect then is not just in what we know or what we do — but in our Ways of Working (WOWs), which this installment of StraightTalk explores.

In this installment of StraightTalk, we’ll take another look at business architecture in action. This time, we’ll focus on how it can be used as a framework for better decision-making. The intention here is to give you some examples of how you can use business architecture to support different types of decision-making within your organization. We’re confident these will inspire many more ideas of your own.

In this installment, we will straight talk on one of everyone’s favorite topics: how to socialize and build buy-in for business architecture within an organization. Yep, we’re talking about business architecture + marketing = business marketecture. And sometimes we need a lot of it.

How does an organization really succeed with business architecture? In this epic installment of StraightTalk, we explore that question with nine different business architecture practice leaders from around the word. They each give the straight talk on how to position business architecture, how to deliver real business value and outcomes with it, how to gain buy-in and shift mindsets, and how to start and grow an internal practice within an organization. This installment is based on a very special 3-part podcast series, which contains individual interviews with each one of them.

This installment of StraightTalk offers some fresh, data-based insights on the human side of business architecture from the Business Architect Strengths Study. This is a good starting point to help us explore how to leverage our unique strengths and work with others, not only to succeed in the business architect role but also to drive change with business architecture.