Survey: Business Architecture Adoption — Crossing the Chasm (2023)

Have we crossed the chasm with the discipline of business architecture yet? According to the survey, Nope, not yet. 

The results from our 2023 survey aligned closely with the results from the previous two years of surveys (given to a similar community of business architecture professionals). The 2021 survey reflected that 81% of respondents believe that we have not crossed the chasm with business architecture yet while the 2022 survey reflected that 79.5% of respondents believe that we have not yet crossed the chasm. This 2023 survey reflects a minimal improvement with 79.4% of respondents believing we have not crossed the chasm.      

Here is a selection of comments from survey respondents:

• As one of our Inner Circle Alumni articulated so well, we can potentially think of two related chasms that we need to cross. The first is a consistent understanding of the discipline (if you are reading this, perhaps you are more likely aligned to the contemporary strategic business practice of the discipline) and the second is the business adoption of that discipline. Here are some additional related comments:
  • “Awareness of the difference between business and enterprise architecture is the major challenge to adoption.”
  • “There is still a lot of confusion with IT enterprise architecture. I sense a positive evolution towards real business architecture in the insurance industry (Belgium).”
  • “We are still explaining what business architecture is to stakeholders and there are still too many “business architects” giving different answers.”
  • "In my experience, business architecture best sits within ‘the business’ (let’s not forget that IT is the business too though). It can either be Enterprise Strategy or Enterprise Transformation as Business Architecture bridges these two domains BUT (again IMO) two things MUST BE TRUE: (1) The leader of those domains must be very senior and a Business Architecture evangelist and (2) The two domains must work hand in glove rather than against each other.  Otherwise Business Architecture will struggle."
  • "This lack of clarity [on definition] is precisely why the practice is quite challenged to cross the chasm. Are we closer? Lots of progress I would say in having the foundations to do it with leading practitioners as Whynde Kuehn and all the folks behind the Guild, with significant challenges to change thinking and ways of working."
  • "I think yes in general, but that many organisations don’t know “what good looks like”."
• “Adoption normally involves a standardized role within an organization and it’s not there yet.”
• “I believe that what is keeping us behind the chasm is the lack of a widely adopted definition for what business architecture is, societal and global dynamics/business landscape urgencies of “fast” and “agile,” and many people assuming these architecting roles without proper competencies.”
• "When the industry doesn’t have a common understanding of the the value and terms used in the discipline, you are still in the early adopters phase. Just look at linked in jobs for “Business Architect.” The breadth of the different job descriptions indicates that the industry is enamored with the title and has little understanding of the value or scope."
• "Every conversation I have, I need to explain business architecture or rectify a misinformed conception."
• "There is still deep suspicion amongst business leaders and IT about what business architecture is and the enabling role it plays."
• "Business Architecture is a practice which relies heavily on the inputs from stakeholders. The transparency of practice in the stakeholder communities is less, rather it’s viewed as a complex practice."
• “We are getting there. Business and technology leaders are definitely aware of the discipline, but they still don’t understand it fully and are unsure of how to utilize it within their organization.”
• "Still seen as a nice to have and not valued IMHO."
• “The day business architecture becomes as important a function like accounting or at least as important as change management or product management, I’d say we will have crossed the chasm. Business architecture is right now a want for many organizations and not a need. The day it becomes a need, we would have crossed the chasm.”
• "I've never heard business people / executives / boards call it business architecture. But if I think of EA, again, I've never heard business people, executives and boards talk about EA. They talk about Organisational Transformation, Digital Transformation, and they have to be told that they need an EA function and why. Then EA feels like it's owned by IT. So I think we're a long long way from broad adoption."
• "Business architecture is often done but quite often stakeholders don’t recognise that it is business architecture being undertaken. Quite often is guised under business analysis and from my experience, quite often the term architecture alienates many stakeholders and the prefer softer more mainstream business terms like design, etc."
• "Definitely not! But can’t wait for the day when we do."
• "Probably not yet. I am seeing more business architecture roles advertised in the UK but often, whilst there may be an enlightened sponsor in an organisation, there is still a lack of knowledge inside organisations as to what a business architect can offer. Hopefully we have made the leap, even if we have not yet landed in Early Majority territory!"
• "Logic only does not help when comfort zones need to be abandoned!"
• "Varies by geographic region and size of organization."
• "On reflection, probably not yet. I am seeing more business architecture roles advertised in the UK but often, whilst there may be an enlightened sponsor in an organisation, there is still a lack of knowledge inside organisations as to what a business architect can offer."
• "It's moving in the right direction, but not generating the demand that will be needed to grow and be self-sustaining. As an example, I see very few business architect job advertisements in my part of the world (Australia)."
• "I submit that there are a number of companies with established practices and significant benefits partly to the credit of business architecture methods and practitioners, so that meets the criteria as having Crossed the Chasm. If you add the solid foundation for the practice due to the Guild’s Business Architecture Body of Knowledge, those methods established in the leading Enterprise Achitecture framework (TOGAF 10), and several excellent books (such as Strategy to Reality) and white papers, I wouldn’t call that an emerging practice. My guess is the reason some might question whether we’ve crossed that chasm has more to do with the maturity of the practitioners themselves. There is a large chasm between just using the formalism as part of your toolbox similar to a programming language (an IT-only mindset) vs. fundamentally shifting the mindset and approach for strategic execution in a manner that disrupts and accelerates a whole business practice (a business value mindset)."
• "Similar to the driver that we leveraged at [fortune 500 organization] as a necessity to improve the ability to develop complete and actionable business requirements for the introduction of new and improved capabilities we have introduced the competency of business architecture. As we embark on an effort to develop a long term Consumer/Customer Strategy, Business Capabilities Model and Technical Reference Architecture in partnership with marketing we will be defining and applying Business Architecture from a more strategic angle in 2023."
• "I believe we are close, we are like Helen Keller playing a repetitive finger game until she felt the water flow through her fingers and realized it was the name 'Water'. Business hasn't realized the true value of business architecture and all it can bring to a business -- we are following a methodology in my company without truly understanding it. Small steps forward."
• "Almost… we are on the right track.  Actually, I see business architecture as a strong strategy and transformation tool. For that definition we need to put more efforts to deserve an adoption worldwide."
• “I think we are close. While people might practice much of it, it has not been formalized to the level it needs to be. Better socialization of the impact and value of business architecture would probably help.”
• “I see many full-time business architect roles opening up across industries. This is a great sign.”
• “Steadily climbing that left bell curve.”
• “I believe 2023 will be a year we could actually jump the chasm. With so many companies in transformation without a clear North Star and mergers likely becoming the trend in 2023 as the US moves into a predicted recession period. Without business architecture practices, many will cycle or spin their wheels. Business architecture advocates could be leading the year of change if companies knew they needed it.”