Business Architecture and Nick Malik’s Enterprise Business Motivation Model

For the last two weeks, I’ve had a tab open to Nick Malik’s Toward an Enterprise Business Motivation Model article in The Architecture Journal, and finally, this afternoon I had time to give the work the attention it deserves.  Read: I’m quite impressed.  Too often, people confuse business architecture with business process modeling.  While process modeling is a facet of business architecture, it is far from the whole picture. 

Your business architecture needs to include aspects to plan (strategy, operating model), execute (business units, business capabilities, business information, resources, processes & chains, products & services), interact (suppliers, channels, markets, customers, shareholders, financiers), manage (measurement systems, policies, rules) and change (assess, design, implement) in the context of expected outcomes and outcome disrupters (internal and external change forces).  And of course, the business architecture must account for the relationships between the various aspects in the context of the scenario being addressed (designed, implemented, measured).

When I speak to business architecture, I often share a version of the following, continuously evolving Business Architecture Domain (simplified) picture.  [Click on picture to enlarge]

And while I still like my Business Architecture Domain picture, it’s just that, a picture.  Nick’s work is a set of seven core models that comprise an Enterprise Business Motivation Model.  The key concepts included in the model are Influencer, Driver, Business Unit, Business Unit Capability, Business Model, Directive, Business Process and Assessment. 

If you are interested in Business Architecture, Business Analysis and/or evolving your Enterprise Architecture practice to be business-driven, I highly recommend (a) reading Nick’s article and (b) considering how you can utilize the proposed Enterprise Business Motivation Model in your work. 

Me, I’ll be testing my “business architecture domain picture” against the Enterprise Business Motivation Model and evolving as appropriate.  Thanks to Nick for sharing this excellent work!

Comments

[Nick Malik]

I appreciate the compliment, Brenda. As you proceed with your testing of the EBMM, I'd be very interested to hear about any issues or concerns you may encounter, so that I may improve it.

I documented further detail on the site 'motivationmodel.com' so you may find further detail there.

I have been asked to move the content to CodePlex, but that is snarled in internal processes. When I do get it moved to CodePlex, I hope to be able to post a full specification for the model.

Thank you, again, for taking the time to read and then share the article with the community.

[Scott Pollino]

One thing I like about the BMM is that it gives meaning to terms like "Vision" and "Mission." Too often these are seen as the same thing so people have trouble developing them properly.

The idea of understanding "Influencers" is break-through. It is an idea that is front-and-center for business architecture more than the other sub-practices of enterprise architecture.

Business Architect