By Whynde Kuehn

Business architecture has evolved into a strategic business discipline with a critical role in enabling effective strategy execution from end-to-end, driving the intentional and sustainable design of organizations, and informing a broad range of business decision making with a holistic, cross-organizational view. It has become essential as organizations shape their futures and operate in an increasingly complex and constantly changing world.

As organizations adopt the discipline, a key question inevitably arises: How do we get started and how do we scale and sustain a business architecture practice that delivers real business impact and value? In this article, we will explore globally proven best practices for positioning and embedding business architecture across an organization, a roadmap for establishing and scaling a practice, and the top drivers of business impact.

Strategic positioning and continual value delivery are key to long-term business architecture success.

The contemporary practice of business architecture has evolved to exist within two worlds, as shown in the Venn diagram below.  On one hand, business architecture is a part of the enterprise architecture umbrella where it serves as the tip of the spear to provide business direction, language, context, and perspective for more technology-related scenarios such as application portfolio management or cloud strategy and migration decision-making.  (See right side of diagram.)  On the other hand, business architecture provides a missing role and framework that has arguably been missing within strategic management to translate strategies cohesively and align them with execution, connect silos, and inform more holistic decision-making.  (See left side of diagram.)  There is a continuum of usage scenarios for business architecture that need to be covered (as shown in the overlap space of the diagram) and both sides are important.

Successful teams have increasingly been positioning business architecture as the bridge between strategy and execution within their organization.  This means that more teams are reporting to business leaders and are involved upfront to inform and translate strategy and shape and align initiatives.  It also means that business architects are honing their strategic business competencies and building partnerships with many teams across the entire strategy execution life cycle.

This strategic positioning most importantly helps to bridge the gap between strategy and execution that is often missing in organizations, but it also puts business architecture teams closer to where business direction and change is happening within an organization.  This helps business architects – and other members of the enterprise architecture team – get to the right tables, early in the life cycle, when architecture can contribute the most value. 

Successful teams continually deliver business value.  As uniquely valuable as the business architecture knowledgebase and blueprints are, they are ultimately a means to an end for informing decision-making and serving as canvases for enterprise design and redesign. The most effective teams relentlessly focus on providing business value and build their knowledgebase and practice just enough, just in time in support of business outcomes.

There is a proven formula for establishing and socializing business architecture that teams around the world are succeeding with.[1]  It begins with identifying a business sponsor, helping them to articulate the intended business value and outcomes for business architecture tailored to the organization, successfully delivering repeatable services to achieve those outcomes, and then telling the story to others to build understanding and buy-in.  Even if a business sponsor is not available in the beginning, the continual delivery and socialization of value builds momentum for business architecture and creates the pull for sponsorship and broader adoption.

[1] Please refer to the 3-part podcast series with Wisdom from Business Architecture Practice Leaders here: https://bit.ly/3gmp6rU.  A written article is also available here: https://bizarchmastery.com/straighttalk/7-practices-successful-business-architecture-teams-how-succeed-business-architecture.  

A practical, value-led approach is most effective for starting and scaling a business architecture practice.

The mantra of lead with value and build as you go alsounderpins the approach for building a business architecture practice. As shown in the diagram below, the roadmap for establishing a business architecture practice starts with understanding business architecture (Step 1) and defining its value proposition (Step 2).  Then, a business architecture baseline is built to represent the organization at a high level, consisting of capabilities, value streams, and a cross-mapping between the two (Step 3A).  From that point forward though, the emphasis shifts to the usage of business architecture for value (Step 3B) – and the knowledgebase (Step 3C) and supporting practice infrastructure (Track 2) is refined and expanded just enough just in time in support of the value to be delivered.

Please refer to the 3-part podcast series with Wisdom from Business Architecture Practice Leaders here: https://bit.ly/3gmp6rU.  A written article is also available here: https://bizarchmastery.com/straighttalk/7-practices-successful-business-architecture-teams-how-succeed-business-architecture

While each organization has its own dynamics and needs, some of the best initial business scenarios for leveraging business architecture are often:

• Translating one strategy – Work with a business leader(s) or strategy team to translate a strategy or strategy refresh into business initiatives, through the enterprise lens of value streams and capabilities.
• Informing project portfolio management decision-making – Analyze the strategic alignment and planned spend for initiatives by capability, at an aggregate level, within or across portfolios.
• Inform application portfolio decision-making – Rationalize system applications by capability and analyze their health, tech debt, and risk within a capability context.

Business architecture is also instrumental in helping organizations to navigate in times of great uncertainty. It can be leveraged to assess the impacts of business change and disruption, support business continuity decisions by identifying priority capabilities and corresponding action plans, provide a structured framework for exploring new strategic options, and uncover opportunities for smart, enterprise-level cost reduction. In times of uncertainty and cost cutting, the last thing organizations should do is downsize their business architecture teams – on the contrary, the discipline becomes even more essential during these periods.

Focus on the top drivers of business impact.

Successful teams leverage a common set of approaches to drive business impact through business architecture:

• Continuous Value Delivery + Build Advocates: Deliver real business results again and again and build advocates who can tell the story and extend influence.
• Build Partnership + Build Advocates: Form intentional relationships with other roles and teams to ensure alignment and amplify impact – and again build advocates who can tell the story and extend influence.
• Integrate Into Frameworks or Become Them: Embed business architecture into the fabric of an organization by integrating it with key processes such as the strategy to execution, investment planning, or business continuity, as well as with other applicable frameworks (e.g., SAFe).
• Executive Business Sponsorship and Engagement: Engage business sponsors (or work towards identifying one) and empower leaders to use business architecture for setting direction and making informed decisions.
• Facilitate a Transformational or Culture Shift: Leverage business architecture as a core enabler in helping an organization to shift its design and culture, such as becoming more customer-centric, improving cross-functional collaboration, embracing digital ways of working, or aligning around a new strategic direction.
• Make Business Architecture for Everybody: Make business architecture accessible to those who need it for decision-making, so they can self-serve. As people engage with the architecture directly, they discover new possibilities and develop a sense of ownership.

Moving into Action: Key Questions for Reflection

As your organization advances its business architecture practice, reflect on the following questions to assess your current state and guide your next steps:

• Impact and Value Delivery: Does business architecture have a simple, clear, and relevant value proposition for the organization that is consistently understood among the team and the key stakeholders? Do you know your usage scenarios for business architecture now, next, and in the future? Are a set of repeatable business architecture services defined to deliver that value? Are you telling your story and leveraging your advocates? Which impact drivers can you pursue?
• Executive Business Sponsorship: Is business sponsorship for business architecture sufficient and visible? If you don’t have it yet, what creative steps can you take?
• Business Architecture Baseline: Is a cohesive business architecture baseline (capabilities and value streams based on defined information concepts) in place for the scope of the organization? Was it built by/is it owned by a cross-functional group of business representatives? Is it accessible to all relevant team members and stakeholders?
• Partnership and Integration: Have you inventoried your related teams and defined your interaction with them (engagement model)? Are you actively building relationships with each team? Have you expressed the value and role of business architecture within the context of any relevant frameworks?
• Conditions for Success: Do business architects have the right positioning (e.g., positioned at the right level and strategically within the business), resources (e.g., education, tools), and support they need to be successful?

In closing, organizations that have the commitment and persistence to invest in and mature their business architecture practice will reap the benefits, not the least of which is the ability to execute strategies and transformations in a more accelerated, cohesive, and effective way.  In today’s environment of rapid change, business architecture is a critical discipline that leads to increased business impact and competitive advantage.

The continued adoption, expansion, and maturation of business architecture along with the increasing need for the value and perspective it can provide makes this one of the most exciting times to be practicing the discipline.  Challenge your team and yourself to take it to the next level, and best of luck on your business architecture journey!

We’re delighted to have Whynde Kuehn, internationally recognised business architecture pioneer and Founder of S2E Transformation, speaking at the Enterprise & Business Architecture Conference Europe 2025. Join us from 16 – 19 June 2025 for an unmissable conference. Expect actionable takeaways, a proven framework, and expert guidance from one of the discipline’s most trusted voices.

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