As I threatened, I’ve had another attempt at the enterprise architecture metamodel (model of models) that I started earlier. I think it’s an improvement, but I’m still not satisfied – I’m not completely happy with the way I’ve placed the governance … but it’ll come to me!

EA Metamodel v0.2

EA Metamodel – click to enlarge

 

Hopefully I’ve made it clear that the business intent drives business design, and specifically that the business model predominantly sets the capability and people requirement and that the operating model sets the scene for business processes by determining the level of process standardisation and integration across business units.

The business intention sets the governance framework, which is then in place to monitor the execution of the business design.

As I mentioned earlier, this represents my synthesis of work done by others, specifically the Enterprise Business Motivation Model from Nick Malik, the Business Model Generation material from Osterwalder and Pigneur, and Enterprise Architecture as Strategy from Jeanne Ross, Peter Weill and David Robertson (see the foundations of the operating model idea in this PDF document, registration required).

This is a “helicopter” level view – meant as a consulting and conversation guide for senior managers to help them place enterprise architecture appropriately in their strategic thinking. When it comes to actually doing the design work involved in getting value from enterprise architecture, a framework such as Fragile to Agile’s Integrated Architecture Framework is a natural progression from this diagram, usually teamed with some consultation to help you (re-) design your business (end shameless plug!).

 

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