According to Harmon, "A Business Process Architecture, ... is a description of the organization's business model and strategy, its goals and its performance metrics. ... the value chains and large scale processes used by an organization that shows how processes support organizational strategies and generate performance metrics."
The enterprise methodology offered by BPTrends isn't the only possible approach, but it is one possible approach that answers the question, how do we as managers systematically address enterprise level concerns? BPTrends methodology is a means of describing an "ongoing effort on the part of management to create and maintain the tools they need to function as a process-centric organization."
In defining a methodology, Harmon specifically means "a comprehensive and specific set of instructions for accomplishing a task - in this case, redesigning or improving a business process." Yet, he differentiates between methodology and algorithm, saying, "no methodology can ever be an algorithm. At best, a methodology provides an overall approach and a collection of heuristics. ... a precise vocabulary, checklists and worksheets, and specific procedures for accomplishing particular tasks that guarantee that trained teams will approach projects in a reasonably consistent manner and usually achieve the same results." In so doing Harmon moves the definition away from commonly heald distinctions such as framework or taxonomy. "The Supply Chain Council’s SCOR, the TeleManagement Forum’s eTOM, and the Value Chain Group’s VCG Framework are all good examples of generic Business Process Architecture [framework]s."
Although sometimes these terms are used somewhat interchangeably, Sessions helpfully provides the following distinctions:
enterprise architecture—An architecture in which the system in question is the whole enterprise, especially the business processes, technologies, and information systems of the enterprise
architectural framework—A skeletal structure that defines suggested architectural artifacts, describes how those artifacts are related to each other, and provides generic definitions for what those artifacts might look like
architectural methodology—A generic term that can describe any structured approach to solving some or all of the problems related to architecture
BPTrends Process Architecture Methodology is in fact two separate, but complementary methodologies: "one for enterprise change and one for business process change." The enterprise level methodology is the one that we will focus on here, which allows us to address the enterprise-level concerns (as distinct from the process-level or implementation-level concerns). The first phase focuses on "understanding the enterprise as a whole." A term commonly employed when describing business process architecture is holistic, seeing an enterprise as an integrated system of interrelated processes or value chains.
The second phase narrows the focus to a specific value chain and begins creating a business process architecture for that single value chain. The complexities of process architecture are such that it is not possible to utilize a methodology on more than one chain at a time, although a company may indeed have many more than one. It is also at this stage that the architecture methodology allows us to "elucidat[e] the core business processes and subprocesses in the value chain" and to "define how each process will be monitored and measured." It is also in this phase that management will "align policies and business rules with their processes. ... align IT resources, like software applications and databases. ... align human resources, including jobs, skill requirements, training programs, and knowledge management programs."
BPTrends methodology usually relies on an "extended version of a business process framework to help managers develop a basic business process architecture and measurement system" and leads to the "development of a plan to manage their organization's business processes." This plan may take the form of a " matrix that includes both functional and process managers."
It may also stipulate a BPM Group that will undertake process governance, monitoring and ownership.
Harmon further states: “Companies approach enterprise level activities in many different ways. Some, for example, use the Balanced Scorecard approach to help with the alignment of corporate goals and the evaluation of managers, but do not tie that program to business processes in any rigorous way. Others have a business process architecture, but do not tie their architectural models to their ongoing business performance evaluations.”
IBM Actionable Business Architecture
IBM cites "the need for an unprecedented alignment, or rather convergence of IT solutions to business priorities" in the face of a growing competitive environment. They note that "this [convergence] offers the possibility to exploit the enabling power of IT solutions in defining business strategies. As business and technology become more intertwined, development and deployment of successful IT systems that address the needs of the business today and in the future become extremely critical."
In a series of white papers, IBM Global Business Services articulates its Actionable Business Architecture methodology as "the best way to achieve the above goals of business-IT convergence ... by exploiting Business Architecture. While all organizations have a representative business design, elaboration of a corresponding business architecture may not exist. Implementing such an architecture will create competitive advantages for the organization and enable it to realize operational improvements and efficiencies."
IBM Actionable Business Architecture is "a holistic Business Architecture paradigm" that relies on "three specific perspectives: strategy and transformation (S&T), business process management (BPM) and service oriented architecture (SOA)."
"Business Architecture defines and manages the valued relationships and interactions among the strategy, operating and IT models of a business." These three models and their interactions are described more fully.
The strategy model "includes the vision, mission, goals, policies and commitments the enterprise develops, commonly classified under business intent or motivation." It includes "value propositions as well as revenue and pricing models."
The operating model "describe[s] the boundaries of primary business functions and thus, are intimately connected to the pieces of the organization that perform those functions, as well as resources and skills that generate competitive advantage in support of the business strategy." It can be thought of as "the set of interaction/coordination and learning and transformation processes that transcend functional and organizational boundaries. ... which people, resources, business rules and controls are involved." The IBM Actionable Business Architecture emphasizes componentization and modularization at this stage.
The third model is the Information technology (IT) model. "Process segments are automated and enabled through IT systems, while the specifics of business functions and capabilities are implemented and delivered through IT systems."
IBM describes the main differentiator between its Actionable Business Architecture and traditional business process architectures as follows:
"At a conceptual level, the Business Architecture described and developed within the scope of enterprise architecture is the same as what is characterized here as being at the intersections of strategy, operating and IT models. However, as presented earlier, the Business Architectures created by existing approaches are not wholly actionable.
Business Architecture realized at the focused intersections of S&T, BPM and SOA will be realistic and actionable. This strategy extends the scope of Business Architecture as typically defined, enhances the details developed by activities that are considered within scope, and prescribes specific approaches for adoption and execution."
Conclusion
"Everything should begin with a corporate strategy," according to Harmon.
Since Michael Porter’s work on value chains, "strategy depends on processes, how processes interact with each other, how process performance is measured, and a deep understanding of how processes interface with customers. Thus, with or without a formal enterprise process enterprise, organizations are engaged in defining enterprise level tools that will provide the structure and the data needed to make important day-to-day decisions and to support key initiatives like the entry into new markets, mergers, acquisitions, or outsourcing. As we have already suggested, a business process enterprise methodology simply provides a systematic way to achieve that goal."
Both the BPTrends methodology and the IBM Actionable Architecture stress the importance of a holistic, process perspective as opposed to a more traditional, functional silo perspective. Harmon advocates that managers "need to think in terms of organizational systems and value chains rather than thinking primarily in terms of divisions, departments, or their own functional unit." This systems perspective lies at the heart of enterprise architectures and "emphasizes process and connections, and ultimately adaptation." He further states that "Process thinking is just a subset of systems thinking. Systems thinking puts the emphasis on understanding the organization as a whole. Process thinking stresses thinking about a portion of the system that produces a specific set of results."
Lastly, Harmon reminds us that "Departments don't produce profits; value chains and processes produce profits." Through the deployment of a business process architecture methodology such as BPTrends or IBM's Actionable Business Architecture, managers can effectively embrace a holistic, systems perspective toward integrating processes, strategy and information technology leading to greater customer satisfaction and greater stakeholder value.
WORKS CITED
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Actionable Business Architecture – IBM’s Approach. (October 2010). IBM Global Business Services. White paper.
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Harmon, P. (2007). Business Process Change: A Guide for Business Managers and BPM and Six Sigma Professionals. Burlington, MA 01803: Morgan Kauffman Publishers.
Harmon, P. Enterprise Modeling. (October 23, 2007). BPTrends. (5:8).
http://www.bptrends.com/publicationfiles/advisor20071023.pdf (Accessed on September 10, 2012).
Harmon, P. What Is Business Architecture? (November 16, 2010). BPTrends. (8:19).
http://www.bptrends.com/publicationfiles/advisor20101116.pdf (Accessed on September 10, 2012).
Harmon, P. Business Process Methodologies. (November 16, 2010). BPTrends. (5:20).
http://www.bptrends.com/publicationfiles/advisor20071127.pdf (Accessed on September 10, 2012).
Sessions, R. (May 2007). A Comparison of the Top Four Enterprise-Architecture Methodologies.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466232 (Accessed September 12, 2012).
