Daniel Lambert, Vice President of Montreal-based Benchmark Consulting, makes a case for business architecture as an effective communication conduit between CIOs and business executives, in his recently published article entitled, “Make Your CIO More Relevant Using Business Architecture.” Lambert references Whynde Kuehn’s strategy-to-execution value stream that reflects a common four-stage approach: develop goals and strategy; build a roadmap; execute solutions, and finally, measure success. This value stream approach recognizes an essential fifth step — Architect Changes — between strategy and roadmap development. This vital sequence of business architecture roles reduces the risk of failure for large-scale, transformation projects. Kuehn describes Architect Changes as consisting of the following stages:
- Clarify Goals & Strategy – Map strategy
- Assess Impact – Identify strategy impacts
- Architect the Change – Develop target architecture to translate how strategy will be operationalized
- Identify the Gaps – Compare current to target architecture to identify the necessary changes
Lambert concludes that by involving business architects in the transformation process, CIOs are able to communicate more effectively with their business executive counterparts and establish processes that not only benefit the IT department, but yield enterprise-wide success that supports the strategic vision.
