B. Business Architecture

Business Scenario

• A method used to help identify and understand the business requirements that an architecture must address.
• A representation of a significant business need or problem and enables vendors to understand the value of a solution to the customer.

Introduction

A key factor in the success of an Enterprise Architecture is the extent to which it is linked to business requirements, and demonstrably supporting and enabling the enterprise to achieve its business objectives. Any architectural effort must begin with a baseline view of the needs to be fulfilled by the solution or solutions. Consider guiding the construction of a warehouse building without understanding why the warehouse is needed. This could result in a fine warehouse solution for housing large-scale mechanical parts; however, the need was a warehouse for household goods. Creating an architecture without understanding "why" typically results in mismatches between solutions and needs.

The Business Scenario method is a technique to validate, elaborate, and/or change the premise behind an architecture effort by understanding and documenting the key elements of a Business Scenario in successive iterations where:

• Each iteration requires planning, data gathering, analysis, documentation, and review
• Each iteration should improve one or more of the key elements
• Iterations are repeated until your understanding is fit-for-purpose for deciding to move forward

Not examining all elements of a Business Scenario carries a risk of producing an incomplete solution, but care must be taken not to iterate unnecessarily.

The Business Scenario method may be used at various stages of developing an Enterprise Architecture - principally the Preliminary, Architecture Vision, and Business Architecture phases - but in other architecting phases as well, if required, to derive the characteristics of the architecture directly from the high-level requirements of the business. The technique is used to help identify, understand, and document business needs, and thereby to derive the business requirements that the architecture development has to address. These business requirements are documented as a Business Scenario.

A Business Scenario is a uniform description of:

- Real business problems   
- The business and technology environment in which those problems occur   
- Value streams enabled by capabilities   
- The desired outcome(s) of proper execution   
- The human and computing components (the "actors") who provide the capabilities

A good Business Scenario is also "SMART":

• Specific, by defining what needs to be done in the business
• Measurable, through clear metrics for success
• Actionable, by:
  • Clearly segmenting the problem
  • Providing the basis for determining elements and plans for the solution
• Realistic, in that the problem can be solved within the bounds of physical reality, time, and cost constraints
• Time-bound, in that there is a clear statement of when the solution opportunity expires

Below are further notes on Business Scenarios and the Business Scenario method:

• Business Scenarios are not just about IT, even though that was their genesis
  Business Scenarios are just as much about understanding business value, value streams, and business outcomes and what resources in general are required to improve the value streams and meet outcomes to deliver business value.

• Business Scenarios are not specific to the IT industry, rather the technique can be applied to help understand the requirements in any industry such as Healthcare, Transportation, Oil and Gas, Lottery, etc.

• Business Scenarios are not just relevant to big problem areas; the technique can be applied to very large general problems areas such as standards for National Lotteries, or very small focused problem areas such as retail Point of Sale upgrades

• Business Scenarios, just like architectures, are not the end game - the end game is achieving the desired business outcomes
  Thus, there must be a downstream path for using the Business Scenario to drive the architecture work which must faithfully drive implementation of solutions.

• Business Scenarios are statements at a specific time and should be updated to reflect significant changes

Business Scenarios are not:
1. Use-cases (as in OMG, Rational SW, ...); use-cases are:

- More detailed descriptions of human to computer interaction   
- Typically used in software development projects

1. Business models nor business cases nor Business Scenario plans (as in Forbes ...):

   • However, a Business Scenario can be informed by a company's business model
   • A SMART Business Scenario can inform a business case and/or a business model and/or Business Scenario plan

   • SPIN (as in Situation, Problem, Implication, Need Payoff selling strategy):

   • SPIN is a sales technique that can be used to gather information for a Business Scenario

   • A Business Scenario can provide the seller some relevant "context" for a SPIN engagement

   • A substitute for any typical engineering specifications (as from IEEE):

   • Which are much more detailed, material-specific, and tied more to science