Title: Defining the term "Business Architecture" | BAInstitute.org
Headings: Defining the term "Business Architecture"
Defining the term "Business Architecture"
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Content: to satisfy or to delight the customer. Structuring the business around integrated components called value streams fit very nicely from the perspective of TOGAF’s definition of architecture; the fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution. Value streams are customer centric, integrate well with one another and the enterprise’s external environment, align with the strategy, have appropriate metrics and measures for judging success, benefit value chain analysis, and with proper leadership and governance; improve, mature and evolve. Value streams are also commonly used and well understood, for example, in Six Sigma initiatives. Considering the previously parsed terms of architecture and business, choosing value streams as the internal structure and organizing principal, and keeping in mind the context of a Business Architecture in an EA framework, one can develop a BA definition and subject it for review and analysis: The Business Architecture defines the enterprise value streams and their relationships to all external entities, other enterprise value streams, and the events that trigger instantiation. It is a definition of what the enterprise must produce to satisfy its customers, compete in a market, deal with its suppliers, sustain operations, and care for its employees. Using this definition of Business Architecture, the enterprise may now create a strategic initiative to build and use the BA to improve corporate performance.