The document presents six viewpoints of business architecture: motivation, capability, activity, knowledge, responsibility, and cybernetic, each illustrating different aspects of a business's functioning and structure. It discusses how these viewpoints can help in understanding business processes, strategies, and relationships within various companies. Additionally, it highlights the importance of abstraction levels in modeling business processes and the roles of leadership and learning in organizational dynamics.

1. BUSINESS ANALYSIS FORUM
Richard Veryard July/October 2012
Six Viewpoints of
Business
Architecture

2. MOTIVATION
VIEW
What the business wants
CAPABILITY
VIEW
What the business does
CYBERNETIC
VIEW
How the business thinks
ACTIVITY
VIEW
How the business does
KNOWEDGE
VIEW
What business knows
RESPONSIBILITY
VIEW
What the business is
Six Views of Business
ISO 42010 calls
these Viewpoints

3. we want
Outcome Outcome
Outcome
Outcome
-+-
+
+£
£
Motivation View
purpose, value & performance

4. Motivation View
 Corporate Goals and
Objectives
Nominal purpose
Nominal strategy
 Business Motivation
Model (BMM)
 Performance Outcomes
 Direct and Indirect Value
Defacto purpose
(POSIWID)
Emergent strategy
360º Risk
 i*
 VPEC-T
Singular Plural
OMG: Strategic View

5. we can
Key Activities
Value
Proposition
Distribution
Channels
Client
Relationships
Revenue
Structure
DifferentiationIntegration
Key Resources
Cost Structure
Capability View
function, competence, capacity
Loosely based on Osterwalder’s Business Canvas, but for a single capability

6. Capability View
 Operational Capabilities
 Business Components
 Hard Dependencies
 Coordination and
Management
Capabilities
 Soft Dependencies
 Metacapabilities (e.g.
the capability to create
new capabilities)
Singular Plural
= OMG Capability View

7. we do
Unit of
work
Unit of
work
Unit of
work
Unit of
work
Event
Activity View
event, response, collaboration

8. Activity View = OMG Value Stream View
Traditional View
Business Process as Production Line
Network View
Business Process as Service Network
Linear – designed as a series of steps Non-Linear – designed as a set of services
Chronological – steps executed in time-
sequence
Logical – services put together in logical
combinations
Cumulative – adding value at each step Modulative – services modulating one
another
Synchronous – each step dependent and
waiting upon the previous steps
Asynchronous – services executed
independently
Transforming raw materials and
components into finished product
Transmuting input services into output
services

9. we know
generalization aggregation classification
HOTEL MOTEL
ACCOMMODATION
MEAL TICKET
TRAVEL &
SUBSISTENCE
CHARGING
POLICY
TAXATION
RULE
EXPENSE ITEM
From complex world to simple schema … via
abstraction
Knowledge View
records, facts, patterns & ideas

10. Knowledge View
 Systems of Record
 (Formal Data)
 Systems of Engagement
 (Informal Information)
Singular Plural
= OMG Knowledge View

11. we must
Traditional Platform
Consumer
Retailer
Farmer
Manufacturer
Caterer
Consumer
Retailer
Farmer
Manufacturer
Caterer
 Economics of Scale, Scope  Economics of Alignment, Governance
Indirect
relationships
Responsibility View
role, delegation & accountability

12. Responsibility View
 Hierarchy
 Enterprise
 Organization
 Network
 Ecosystem
 Business as a Platform
Traditional Emerging
= OMG Organization View

13. we think
feedback, control, & governance
Learning
& Development
Knowledge
& Memory
Information
Gathering
Decision
& Policy
WIGO
(what is going on)
Communication & Collaboration
Sense-Making
Cybernetic View
feedback, control, & governance

14. Cybernetic View
 Goal-Directed
Behaviour
 Single-Loop Learning
 (First Order
Cybernetics)
 Intelligent Behaviour
 Double-Loop Learning
 (Second-Order
Cybernetics)
Singular Plural
Not in OMG

15. Which viewpoint reveals the differences
between these companies?
 Amazon
 Apple
 Facebook
 Google
 IBM
 Microsoft
 Oracle
 Salesforce
 Most of the activities are the same (e.g.
marketing, software development, R&D)
So we may not see much
difference from the Activity
Viewpoint.
 Significant differences in the way they
position themselves in relation to their
ecosystems and learn from experience.
So we may see significant
differences from the
Responsibility or Cybernetic
Viewpoint.

16. Levels of Abstraction in Business Architecture
• A model of the end-to-end business
process, regardless of organizational
boundaries
Company-
Independent
Model
• A model of a collaborative business
process, regardless of the specific
collaboration partners.
Partner-
Independent
Model
• A model of a collaborative process
showing the specific collaboration
partners and their contractual service
relationships (including SLAs)
Partner-
Dependent
model
Outsourcing
Strategy
Outsourcing
Negotiation

17. Simple Complex
Motivation View
What the Business
Wants
Nominal purpose
Nominal strategy
Defacto purpose
Emergent strategy
Capability View
How the Business Does
Operational capability
Hard dependencies
Top-down leadership
Sociotechnical capability and
competency
Soft dependencies
Edge leadership
Activity View
What the Business Does
Linear synchronous process
(value chain)
Asynchronous collaboration
(value network)
Knowledge View
What the Business
Knows
Formal information systems Informal information systems
Sensemaking
Appreciative systems
Cybernetic View
How the Business
Thinks
Goal-directed behaviour
Management by objectives
Single-loop learning
First order cybernetics (VSM)
Second-order cybernetics
(Bateson/Maturana)
Double-loop and deutero learning
Responsibility View
How the Business
Enterprise Business-as-a-Platform
Ecosystem

18. eBooklet Now Available
leanpub.com/
businessarchitecture-
viewpoints/