How Does Your Project Relate to Others?

It is important for the PM and BA to be aware of other projects that may be related to their project. Learn about projects that are already complete and impacted any of the same stakeholders or business processes. Learn about projects that are currently under way. Projects should share as much “corporate knowledge” as possible. Sharing information always results in a better quality product and often speeds project completion. This is one of the primary benefits of a corporate business analysis center of excellence or community of practice. BAs share corporate knowledge, including an understanding of the detailed business processes that are performed, descriptions of the information needed by each business process (data), business rules, guidelines, policies and constraints of the business, information systems (software), hardware and equipment, and detailed procedures and workflows (see Chapter 6 for information on reusing core requirements components). Spending a little time at the beginning of a project researching available corporate knowledge will pay off in time savings and, more importantly, solutions that are consistent and in sync with the rest of the organization.

Enterprise Architecture

One of the activities that may take place during strategic planning is development of an enterprise architecture. The enterprise architecture may contain more specific descriptions of the current environment and future plans. Examples of these architectures include:

• Business architecture

• Information architecture

• Application architecture

• Technical architecture

• Security architecture

Don’t let all of these words and phrases confuse you. They are just ways for the organization to articulate the plan. Many planners use diagrams and sections to break up the plan into logical components that make it easier to review and understand.

The business architecture is the one with which BAs are most likely to be involved. A business architecture is a plan for where the business is going, or what the business should look like in the future. The word “architecture” has been borrowed from another profession where accuracy and planning are key components. To create a “business architecture,” senior executives are asked to describe how they see the organization in the future. There are several ways that they can choose to describe these goals.

An organization sets goals at a very high level. No matter how large the organization, its leaders have some very specific plans and a direction in which they are moving the organization. This is also referred to as the mission of the organization. Ideally, all of the work done inside the organization is done with these goals in mind. Everyone understands the goals and is moving in the same direction. This requires that the organization leaders not only decide on the goals but also clearly communicate the goals and direction to everyone in the organization.

Business Architecture

A business architecture describes the current structure of an organization and outlines a plan for where the business is headed. The business architecture may be broken down into components such as goals, locations, products, etc.

Goals

What are the goals of the organization and/or its management? If a company is privately held, what are the goals of the owners? Identify goals for 0 to 5 years, 6 to 10 years, and longer term. This is one of the most critical components of the business architecture and strategic planning. Identifying and documenting these high-level goals and communicating them to the organization gives everyone in the organization specific information about the direction in which they should be headed. For example: XYZ Corporation will be the number one provider of telecommunication services around the world by the year 2020. Goals are usually documented in a bulleted list.