Element: Business actor

Business Process Cooperation Viewpoint : Archimate

Purpose: Designing, deciding

Concerns: Dependencies between business processes, consistency and completeness, responsibilities

Scope: Multiple layer/Multiple aspect

The business process cooperation viewpoint is used to show the relationships of one or more business processes with each other and/or with their environment. It can be used both to create a high-level design of business processes within their context and to provide an operational manager responsible for one or more such processes with insight into their dependencies. Important aspects of business process cooperation are:

  • Causal relationships between the main business processes of the enterprise
  • Mapping of business processes onto business functions
  • Realization of services by business processes
  • Use of shared data

Each of these can be regarded as a “sub-viewpoint” of the business process cooperation viewpoint.

BusinessProcessCoopViewpoint.docx

Application Usage Viewpoint : Archimate

Purpose: Designing, deciding

Concerns: Consistency and completeness, reduction of complexity

Scope: Multiple layer/Multiple aspect

The application usage viewpoint describes how applications are used to support one or more business processes, and how they are used by other applications. It can be used in designing an application by identifying the services needed by business processes and other applications, or in designing business processes by describing the services that are available. Furthermore, since it identifies the dependencies of business processes upon applications, it may be useful to operational managers responsible for these processes.

Abstraction Level
Coherence

Layer
Business and application layers

Aspects
Behavior, active structure, passive structure

ApplicationUsageViewpoint_1

Organization Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Identification of competencies, authority, and responsibilities
Purpose: Designing, deciding, informing
Scope: Single layer/Single aspect

The organization viewpoint focuses on the (internal) organization of a company, department, network of companies, or of another organizational entity. It is possible to present models in this viewpoint as nested block diagrams, but also in a more traditional way, such as organizational charts. The organization viewpoint is very useful in identifying competencies, authority, and responsibilities in an organization.

 

Product Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Product development, value offered by the products of the enterprise
Purpose: Designing, deciding
Scope: Multiple layer/Multiple aspect

The product viewpoint depicts the value that these products offer to the customers or other external parties involved and shows the composition of one or more products in terms of the constituting (business, application, or technology) services, and the associated contract(s) or other agreements. It may also be used to show the interfaces (channels) through which this product is offered, and the events associated with the product. A product viewpoint is typically used in product development to design a product by composing existing services or by identifying which new services have to be created for this product, given the value a customer expects from it. It may then serve as input for business process architects and others that need to design the processes and ICT realizing these products.

 

Service Realization Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Added-value of business processes, consistency and completeness, responsibilities
Purpose: Designing, deciding
Scope: Multiple layer/Multiple aspect

The service realization viewpoint is used to show how one or more business services are realized by the underlying processes (and sometimes by application components). Thus, it forms the bridge between the business products viewpoint and the business process view. It provides a “view from the outside” on one or more business processes.

Project Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Architecture vision and policies, motivation
Purpose: Deciding, informing
Scope: Implementation and Migration

A project viewpoint is primarily used to model the management of architecture change. The “architecture” of the migration process from an old situation (current state Enterprise Architecture) to a new desired situation (target state Enterprise Architecture) has significant consequences on the medium and long-term growth strategy and the subsequent decision-making process. Some of the issues that should be taken into account by the models designed in this viewpoint are:

  • Developing a fully-fledged organization-wide Enterprise Architecture is a task that may require several years.
  • All systems and services must remain operational regardless of the presumed modifications and changes of the Enterprise Architecture during the change process.
  • The change process may have to deal with immature technology standards (e.g., messaging, security, data, etc.).
  • The change has serious consequences for the personnel, culture, way of working, and organization.

Furthermore, there are several other governance aspects that might constrain the transformation process, such as internal and external cooperation, project portfolio management, project management (deliverables, goals, etc.), plateau planning, financial and legal aspects, etc.

Implement Migration Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Architecture vision and policies, motivation
Purpose: Deciding, informing
Scope: Multiple layer/Multiple aspect

The implementation and migration viewpoint is used to relate programs and projects to the parts of the architecture that they implement. This view allows modeling of the scope of programs, projects, project activities in terms of the plateaus that are realized or the individual architecture elements that are affected. In addition, the way the elements are affected may be indicated by annotating the relationships.

Furthermore, this viewpoint can be used in combination with the programs and projects viewpoint to support portfolio management:

  • The programs and projects viewpoint is suited to relate business goals to programs and projects. For example, this makes it possible to analyze at a high level whether all business goals are covered sufficiently by the current portfolio(s).
  • The implementation and migration viewpoint is suited to relate business goals (and requirements) via programs and projects to (parts of) the architecture. For example, this makes it possible to analyze potential overlap between project activities or to analyze the consistency between project dependencies and dependencies among plateaus or architecture elements.