Phase B: Business Architecture
What Phase B produces
Phase B describes the baseline and target Business Architecture and the gaps between them: organization, business capabilities, value streams, functions, services, processes, roles, actors, information flows and locations. Business scenarios derive requirements, and the Architecture Vision is re-confirmed.
Artifacts follow the catalog, matrix and diagram pattern. Catalogs include Organization/Actor, Driver/Goal/Objective, Role, Business Service/Function, Location, and Process/Event/Control/Product. Matrices include Business Interaction and Actor/Role. Diagrams include Business Footprint, Functional Decomposition, Product Lifecycle, Goal/Objective/Service, Business Use-Case, Organization Decomposition and Process Flow.
Traps
- A business service is something the business offers or does; an IS service is provided by an application. Options mixing these are wrong.
- The Business Interaction matrix describes interactions between business units or functions, not between applications.
- Phase B is not application modelling; system-to-system interfaces belong to Phase C.
- Gap analysis appears in every phase from B to D. Its output feeds Phase E but is not yet a roadmap.
Worked rule of thumb
When an item is described as a capability the business must have regardless of how it is delivered, it belongs in Phase B. When the question says which system supports it, it belongs in Phase C. Trace each business requirement through goal, service, process and role so nothing is orphaned.