EA is typically considered an investment for larger enterprises – understandably. Smaller sized enterprises are busy starting up, executing strategy, and developing and marketing products. The problems that EA (and specifically Business Architecture) solves, are seen as problems that can be put aside until an enterprise is large enough to warrant investment in developing architectures.

Embed Practices rather than setup a Practice

Business Architecture can be foundational for organisations undertaking Digital transformation programs. Digital transformation’s vision is embodied by structures and approaches that support an agile, customer centric and product delivery focused enterprise – arguably (and obviously) building a good foundation to move a business forward should not just be due to transformation, but for all enterprises from start-up. Business Architecture can set the foundations for a business to execute strategy and get it right from the start, where a smaller set of stakeholders, a more aligned vision and simpler processes make it easier to establish good practice. Establishing and embedding practices early that enable stakeholders to see the need for, and value of architecture, can reduce the challenges of establishing a separate practice down the track.

You know your strategy, so look to operations

Lean, agile, and pragmatic (just enough). SMEs may avoid thinking about a fully elaborated architecture with every possible analysis angle, type, matrix, and diagram. Consider what are the key components to establish a ‘lite’ architecture that can enable an informed view of the enterprise landscape, start to answer questions, identify obvious improvement opportunities, and address further problems as they arise. It may also be sensible to start with the operational view of the business – a smaller enterprise, usually, has a solid common understanding of strategy and alignment across internal stakeholders, so time can be saved by focussing on capabilities and enabling processes where initial improvements, duplicated systems and data are more obvious. Typically, entities like Business Capabilities, Processes and Value streams will capture enough information to define the ‘How’ of the business. Information concepts (conceptual data, and business representations) will capture the ‘What’. Customer journeys can help capture your customer’s engagement with your products and business services. Remember, keep it iterative (architecture views are ever evolving and can be improved or better informed as you move forward), don’t over engineer – demonstrate quick wins and tangible business benefits from the small, initial outlay you have invested.

Turning it on and keeping it real

Once an architecture has been established, consider implementing a framework to manage change, deal with the impacts on your business and the overall delivery of value. Assurance processes will keep a business architecture within scope and focussed on the requirements you want to address, as well as foster continuous improvement, tweaking and scaling as the business grows. Focus on collaboration and agreement and be ready to adapt as the business changes, rather than adhering to static principles and abstract truths, and being controlled by formal scheduled reviews to enable catch-up to current state.

Conclusion

Business Architecture adapted and slimmed down, relevant to the scale of an SME, offers numerous opportunities with lower overheads, to confidently embark, adjust and continue to scale as an enterprise grows. Businesses can get ahead of the pack and be positioned for adapting and transforming by embedding these foundations into the mindset of stakeholders and into the structure of the business from the outset, while still small and closeknit, as foundations are being formed.