Business architecture is the discipline concerned with developing and maintaining business capabilities of the enterprise in line with the corporate strategy as well as contributing to the business strategy and plans. The larger an organization the more important the role of the business architect. But even at small scale this role is critical because it facilitates resilience over time.
In FLEX the business architect has the critical role of determining how a new MBI will affect existing capabilities. When an MBI is being considered, the cost of the MBI is not merely what it will take to realize the value espoused in it, it must also include all work to ensure that its implementation does not adversely affect any other functionality.
A business architect is responsible for:
- providing an overview of the capabilities of the organization.
- describing the strategy of the organization, managing the process of identifying opportunities, threats and limitations of the organization and to provide insights of the required work to facilitate implementation
- Align capabilities to strategy. And ensure that new capabilities do not adversely affect existing ones.
- Guide investment and ensure new work is consistent with the investment strategy of the organization
- improve decision making on what to work on by ensure all costs to manifest value are understood