This survey conducted in February and March 2022 reveals how business architecture teams are structured in one of the following three configurations: Centralized where all business architects report to one leader and work on one team; decentralized where business architects, for example, report to different business unit leaders, or hybrid where some business architects report to a central team and others report to additional leaders. The detailed results of the survey are represented below:
- As a decentralized business architecture practice, we often work on “efforts” that cross functional business units giving business architects the ability to drive strategies and solutions from an enterprise point of view.
- As a single business architect in a group of 6 enterprise architects, I report to a Director of Modernization in IT who reports to the CIO.
- In my company, business architecture is a new practice being created as part of the IT Architecture team. I report in the IT Architecture Director and he then reports in the IT Global CTO. So, the main focus for this newly started practice is definitely confined to IT, but with time we need to bring the message to other business units and areas for sure.
- We are new to it so there are only two of us, but longer term we aim to remain centralized, but with business partners for different parts of the organization.
- We do not have a single leader. The couple business architects that are closest to using real business architecture are in the PMO. They would love to get invited into strategy, but it's a steep uphill climb so far. There are a handful of other business architects by title that are imbedded in different business areas, but they are typically hybrids of program managers and super senior business analysts/SMEs.
- We have 4 business architects focused on line of business work, and 2 senior business architects working in enterprise architecture governance. What are they doing there? Biding their time until enterprise technology leadership wakes up. We continue to press for an "it’s all connected" view. Unfortunately, we have to use technology risk management (we are in a regulated industry, Risk and CyberSecurity have immense power) as a means to keep bringing fundamentals to the table, but unless we might be fined for not doing something, we have not been able to leap the chasm of "we are already changing a lot already and if we aren't going to bleed out and die tomorrow, the blood letting (wasted work and money) can continue” because we can't see that it will kill us.
- The discipline is still in its infancy and all opportunities are explored, although taking due care to make sure the CEO is aware of the initiatives.
- Our architects that are focused on modeling are centralized, but the other practitioners are decentralized by business domain.
- Report to the CIO as we're also performing some enterprise architecture duties as well.
- Newly established practice reporting into the Strategy & Transformation function.
- Largest team sits in our corporate office. Remaining teams align to business units.
- This function is being set up new within the strategy function.
- The business architects are part of the enterprise architecture team.
- Our business architecture unit reports to a centralized COE, but each of the more than 30 business architects are 100% assigned to different business units (tribes), so they report both to the centralized unit and functionally to the particular tribe.
- We report to head of architecture, alongside enterprise architects. The Head of Architecture reports to chief technology and innovation. It's not working as we are seen as technology and people prefer speaking with the enterprise architects as they are the key to solutions.
- We have separate teams of business, data, and technology architecture. We report to the Chief Architect and then to the CIO. We have a model where we partner with a product group of the organization, so I look after all business architecture needs of one of the core product groups of the organization (with varying traction!) and then we are responsible for an enterprise-wide strategic capability so for me it is customer relationship management.
- Depending on the size of the company and complexity of business models one would opt for a hybrid business architecture team and a centralized business architecture team. In a small sized company, it would be best with a centralized team. In a medium to large sized company, a hybrid model with a central group and decentralized contributors would work best.
- Centralized, business partnering across the business. Report into Head of Business Architecture who reports into Strategy, Planning and Delivery Director.
- Business architecture as team member in an enterprise architecture team, next to data architecture, solution architecture, infrastructure architecture and security architecture. Team reporting to Chief Technology Officer, serving the whole organization.
- In fact, the answer does depend on many factors: level of practice maturity, initial sponsorship, overall business context (burning platforms) and guiding vision of the bus arch value proposition. The "normal path" would be to start "centralized" while building up critical capability and focusing on delivering business results, somehow trying to be in and with the business team and leader with a sweet spot challenge. Incubating the business architecture team within IT is a double edge sword, most of the time, a source of potential handicaps as the enterprise architecture team has often its own challenges, which may hinder the business architecture team's development. Ideally, you want to be part of the performance office (transformation office and the like) which is focused on improving strategic value delivery, or connected to the COO office, or be part, as I said earlier, of the welcoming business sponsor team who has strong leadership.
You want to be part of a purpose-driven business team and avoid being part of a mismatch IT/requirements delivery driven team like "business analysis and business architecture." This is a recipe to get stuck in a tactical/IT driven environment, going from IT project to the next. If you can, join a "winning" influential team and leader. This leads me to also state that picking the right leader to work with and for, and to set the business architecture pace is very important. From a reporting structure point of view, the business architecture team should report to a n-2 (VP), or if you have no choice to at least n-3 (Sr Director), this may however be difficult to get if no one understands what business architecture is about. Incubating a business architecture team at a lower level is not a good a happy path, especially if you get stuck there while aspiring to do strategic level work.
The other perspective is if business architecture should work as an internal consulting services, or as a staff position, or be part of the business. Again, I would rather look for a service delivery model that is part of the business, part of a transformation program, or part of a performance office. Finding a hosting organization with the right purpose is key.
We could say that decentralization is a good working model, but only if you have reached a certain level of maturity.
