Business Ecosystem

Purpose: The purpose of the Business Ecosystem template is to enable an organization to understand itself from an outside-out perspective by modelling the environment in which the organization is embedded.

Core concerns: The Business Ecosystem supplies five elements to model with: Business, People, Things, Business Interaction and Business Moment. The Business Ecosystem template should primarily be used for modeling entities outside the enterprise to identify new business opportunities in the form of Business Moments.

BusinessEcoSystem

Above you can see a model of a Business Ecosystem. The blue areas are Business Moments, where the interactions between People, Businesses and Things create business opportunities for your enterprise.

Relation to other templates: The Business Ecosystem model is based on the Enterprise Design theories and is as such in the same family as the Customer journey map.

The Business Ecosystem is a strategic model and can be used to document a strategic possibility or track along with for example Business Capability Models, Strategy Models, and Work Models.

Properties and metadata: The Business Ecosystem can for example retain the following information:

  • A description of the diagram
  • Link to the owner of the application architecture
  • Link to the one responsible for the application architecture
  • Audits (auto generated information regarding its current state and access rights)
  • Associated documents, diagrams and other objects
  • Inherent Risk detailing risk considerations
  • Governance information detailing information about the published diagram and who has been involved in the approval of the diagram
  • Project status: information about budgeted and actual man-hours spent, percentage completed and the latest milestone, result and quality control of a change process.

For more information: If you want to learn more about Enterprise Design, we have a four-part webinar by Milan Guenther available for viewing. You can also visit Milan’s website, where you can learn more about the Enterprise Design framework.

Business Diagram

Purpose: The purpose of a Business Diagram is to show the functional structure and relationships of the whole or part of an organization.

Core concerns: The Business Diagram template enables you to model Business Functions, Information Systems, Inventory, Business Scope, Lines of Business, Information Flow and Logistical Flow. The diagram’s syntax can be extended to also include strategic elements such as Goals, Objectives, Stakeholders and Performance Indicators.

The Business Diagram should be broken down into several levels of recurring Business Diagram templates. In the model below, you can see an example of a high-level Business Diagram showing Business Functions and their Information Flows and Logistical Flows –  describing the flow of products and services – in this case for a car rental service.

The Business Functions are placed with the operational functions in the bottom together with the Logistical Flow and with management control at the top of the Business Diagram.

On lower levels (decompositions) of Business Diagrams, Information Systems are placed close to the Business Functions that are responsible for or own the Information Systems.

Relation to other templates: The Business Diagram can be used as an addition to a Business Process Network and Strategy Models, giving a practical view of how the organizations functions fit together, illuminating interdependencies.

Properties and metadata: The Business Diagram can for example retain the following information:

  • A description of the diagram
  • Link to the owner of the Diagram
  • Link to the one responsible for the Diagram
  • Indication of the diagram portrays an as-is situation or a to-be situation
  • The Perspective can be defined as either: Holistic, Sub-functional, Process, or IT Focused.
  • Audits (auto generated information regarding its current state and access rights)
  • Associated documents, diagrams and other objects
  • Inherent Risk detailing risk considerations
  • Governance information detailing information about the published diagram and who has been involved in the approval of the diagram

The above picture shows the properties dialogue window for the Business Diagram where you can view and edit the diagram’s properties in QualiWare Lifecycle Manager.

Business Capability Model

Business Capability model with new symbol design

Purpose: The purpose of the Business Capability Model template is to provide an overview of the of the state and health of an enterprise in the form of its Capabilities.

Core concerns: The Business Capability Model is a simple template that by default only allows for the modelling of Capabilities with the possibility to add notes if needed. The metadata of the Capabilities – such as status and importance can then be graphically displayed in the business capabilities to create a useful overview.

The stripe on the left side to represent Business Importance and two dots representing Business Maturity and Target Maturity. The new design scales better and provides management with a single view of important strategic capabilities with a plan for improvements. Also it allows the business architect to highlight a set of capabilities by coloring the symbol’s background – a widely used technique.

Business Capability model with new symbol design
Business Capability model with new symbol design

In the picture above you can see an example of a Business Capability Model. Here the Business Capabilities are grouped in different areas and the status and importance of them are shown by their green, yellow or red colorings.

In this Business Capability Model (shown above), more attributes are shown at the right-hand side of the Capability. This way you can get a more detailed view of the state of your enterprises Capabilities.

Other functionalities: Using the Analysis tool, the information from the Business Capability Model template can generate maturity- and score heat maps, hierarchies, score views, capability contexts, gap analyses, dashboards, and what-if-, impact- and investment analyses.

Relation to other templates: The Business Capability Model is a strategic template and is as such complimentary to for example the Strategy Model and Work Model. It can be used to illustrate a change process going from one set of capabilities to another. A Capability can link to the Business Processes that uses it as well as the resources it employs. This way it can also be analyzed which Business Processes would be affected by the improvement or worsen of a given Capability.

It is easy to update and analyse the capability models via the standard views on the web:

  • The capabilities in a Business Capability Model can easily be scored and presented in filterable and editable lists via the spreadsheet functionality in e.g. the Properties view

  • The capabilities can be presented in a Capability heatmap

  • From the Delivered by view you can analyze and update relations between capabilities and initiatives, processes, applications and information-objects.

Properties and metadata: The Business Capability Model can for example retain the following information:

  • A description of the diagram
  • Link to the owner of the diagram
  • Link to the one responsible for the accuracy of the diagram
  • Associated documents, diagrams and other objects
  • Inherent Risk detailing risk considerations
  • Governance information detailing information about the published diagram and who has been involved in the approval of the diagram
  • Project status: information about budgeted and actual man-hours spent, percentage completed and the latest milestone, result and quality control of a change process.

The above picture shows the properties dialogue window for the Business Capability Model where you can edit the diagram’s properties.

Note that the Capabilities’ metadata that are exhibited in the Business Capability Model is not further described here as they belong to the Capability object and not the Business Capability Model template.

Balanced Scorecard Diagram

Purpose: The purpose of the Balanced Scorecard Diagram is to model Balanced Scorecards, as described by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in 1992.

Core concern: Usually, a Balanced Scorecard Diagram template measures the state of the enterprise via Key Performance Indicators that are categorized into four different perspectives using Business Scopes. Aside from this, the template enables you to model general concepts and cause/effect.

Below, you can see an example of a Balanced Scorecard Diagram:

BalancedScoracardDiagram_1

Relation to other templates: The Balanced Scorecard Diagram can be used to create a Performance Evaluation Model or a Strategic Management Diagram the Key Performance Indicators it contains can be broken down into Performance Diagrams offering a detailed view of how the organization performs. If CXO dashboards are to be created, the Strategy Model should be used instead.

Properties and metadata: The Balanced Scorecard Diagram can for example retain the following information:

  • A description of the diagram
  • Link to the owner of the diagram
  • Link to the one responsible for the diagram
  • Audits (auto generated information regarding its current state and access rights)
  • Associated documents, diagrams and other objects
  • Inherent Risk detailing risk considerations
  • Governance information detailing information about the published diagram and who has been involved in the approval of the diagram.

The above picture shows the properties dialogue window for the Balanced Scorecard Diagram, where you can view and edit the diagram’s properties in QualiWare Lifecycle Manager.

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

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.

 

Resource Map Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Architecture strategy and tactics, motivation
Purpose: Designing, deciding
Scope: Strategy

The resource map viewpoint allows the business architect to create a structured overview of the resources of the enterprise. A resource map typically shows two or three levels of resources across the entire enterprise. It can, for example, be used as a heat map to identify areas of investment. In some cases, a resource map may also show relationships between resources and the capabilities they are assigned to.

Application Cooperation Viewpoint : Archimate

Concerns: Relationships and dependencies between applications, orchestration/choreography of services, consistency and completeness, reduction of complexity
Purpose: Designing
Scope: Multiple layer/Multiple aspect

The application cooperation viewpoint describes the relationships between applications components in terms of the information flows between them, or in terms of the services they offer and use. This viewpoint is typically used to create an overview of the application landscape of an organization. This viewpoint is also used to express the (internal) cooperation or orchestration of services that together support the execution of a business process.

Abstraction Level
Coherence, details

Layer
Application layer

Aspects
Behavior, active structure, passive structure

ApplicationCoopViewpoint

 

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 Deployment Viewpoint :ArchiMate

Concerns: Structure of application platforms and how they relate to supporting technology
Purpose: Designing, deciding
Scope: Multiple layer/Multiple aspect

The implementation and deployment viewpoint shows how one or more applications are realized on the infrastructure. This comprises the mapping of applications and components onto artifacts, and the mapping of the information used by these applications and components onto the underlying storage infrastructure.