Artifact: Business Architecture Document
 Business Architecture Document |
The Business Architecture Document provides a comprehensive overview of the business, using a number of different architectural views to depict different aspects of the business. |
| Worker: | Business-Process Analyst |
| Optionality: | Can be excluded. |
| Template: | |
| More Information: | |
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| Input to Activities: | Output from Activities: |
Purpose 
The business architecture document provides a comprehensive overview of the structure and purpose of the business. It serves as a communication medium between the business-process analyst and other project team members, containing definitions of key capabilities and mechanisms of the business.
Brief Outline
(hyperlinks into HTML template in a new window)
1. Introduction
1.1 Purpose
1.2 Scope
1.3 Definitions, Acronyms and Abbreviations
1.4 References
1.5 Overview
2. Architectural Representation
3. Architectural Goals and Constraints
4. Business Process View
5. Organization Structure View
5.1 Business Use-Case Realizations
6. Culture View
7. Human Resource Aspects View
8. Domain View (optional)
9. Size and Performance Goals
10. Quality Goals
Timing
The representation and objectives of the business architecture is usually something that must be defined before the very first iterations, and then be maintained throughout the project. These architectural representation guidelines are documented in initial versions of the Business Architecture Document.
The Business Architecture Document is primarily developed during the inception phase, because one of the purposes of this phase is to establish a sound architectural foundation that can serve as input to defining the software architecture (see Artifact: Software Architecture Document).
Responsibility
A business-process analyst is responsible for producing the Business Architecture Document, which captures the most important design decisions in multiple architectural views of the business.
The business-process analyst establishes the overall structure for each architectural view: the decomposition of the view, the grouping of elements, and the interfaces between these major groupings. Thus, in contrast with the other artifacts defining the organization, the Business Architecture Document presents a view of breadth, as opposed to depth.
Tailoring
You should adjust the outline of the Business Architecture Document to suit the nature of your business and the purpose of your effort:
- Some of the architectural views may be irrelevant:
- Some specific aspects of the business may require their own section, for example aspects related to data management or usability issues.
- You may need additional appendices to explain certain aspects, such as the rationale of certain critical choices together with the solutions that have been eliminated, or to define acronyms or abbreviations or present general business design principles.
- The order of the various sections may vary, depending on the business' stakeholders and their focus or interest.
The advantages and disadvantages of each architectural view follow:
Business Process View
If you develop this document at all, this view is mandatory.
Organization Structure View
If you develop this document at all, this view is mandatory.
Culture View
This view is optional. Use this view only if the reorganization implies radical changes in how people work and how the relate to one another.
Human Resource Aspects View
This view is optional. Use this view only if the reorganization implies radical changes in how people work and how the relate to one another.
Domain View
This view is optional. Use this view only if information is a significant aspect of the business, and there is a need to clarify concepts that are core to the business domain.
