Resource Library

This article focuses on business architecture and reveals how it can be leveraged as an enabler along the strategy realization path that harmonizes the execution of business direction across organizational boundaries and initiatives.

Industry thought leader Whynde Kuehn served as guest editor for this September 2018 issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal, focused architecture as the critical enabler for achieving organizational agility. Kuehn’s opening statement provides a thoughtful commentary on the concept of business agility — the ability of an organization to continually anticipate and react to change in response to significant forces such as globalization and technology. She further constructs the idea that organizations are living organisms that must continuously adapt to today’s changing business and market environments.

The nine articles within this issue explore the contradictory idea that architecture — something perceived as structural, static, constraining, governing — is actually the enabler for an organization, which allows it to become more agile and fluid, from strategy through execution.

Organizations that desire to leverage business architecture for transformation, better strategy execution, or various types of decision making need to build their business architecture knowledgebase first before they can fully benefit from the discipline. This is part two of a three-part series of articles that describe how to accelerate the development of an organization’s business architecture. This article focuses on using reference models.

This article summarizes the key characteristics of a mature business architecture practice within an organization.

Organizations that desire to leverage business architecture for transformation, better strategy execution, or various types of decision making need to build their business architecture knowledgebase first before they can fully benefit from the discipline. This is part one of a three-part series of articles that describe how to accelerate the development of an organization’s business architecture. This article focuses on building the knowledgebase.

As the business architecture discipline matures and becomes an established function in an increasing number of organizations, we can now address a more advanced set of questions. How is the ­business architect role evolving and how can business architects best be leveraged during this time of transformation? What demands has this evolution placed on the role? What is the career path for a business architect who has mastered the role? In this article, co-authors Whynde Kuehn and Mike Clark explore some of the truths about the business architect role, potential focuses for the role, career path options, and what the future holds for a discipline that finds itself at the heart of business and technology change.

Establishing business architecture within an organization takes passion, persistence, and patience. Inspired by over a decade and a half of helping organizations to mature their practices — combined with personal mountaineering experiences — this article shares a few lessons for conquering the “business architecture summit” using mountains as metaphor.

In this engaging white paper, Whynde Kuehn, thought leader and accomplished climber, applies metaphors of mountaineering and a formidable mountain to articulate the vision of what is possible with business architecture and shares wisdom on how to achieve success.

While business architecture will continue to play an essential role in the success of organizations, business architects should challenge themselves to be not only architects, but also leaders and change agents — and develop value-added skills that complement the business architect role. This article provides a few key predictions for how the business architecture discipline will unfold over the next horizon based on the current business architecture state and trends.

This essential white paper provides practical guidance and useful best practices to successfully establish a business architecture team within an organization. The work is based on more than a decade and a half of firsthand experience with business architecture teams around the world, as well as work with various industry bodies and thought leaders. This comprehensive guide addresses top questions business architecture leaders and practitioners typically ask, and provides the necessary guidance for a successful business architecture journey. Original Publish Date: 30 November 2017

This article discusses four often confused organizational views: customer journeys, value chains, value streams, and business processes. On the surface, each of these business artifacts may appear to have some similar elements, such as the business vocabulary they use or the fact that they represent some concept of “flow.” However, as this article clarifies, all four views differ in both intention and representation and thus should be clearly differentiated from each other.

This article provides an overview of the benefits and integration points between customer experience design and business architecture, two mutually beneficial disciplines, both critical to customer centricity and transformation.