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J**E
Excellent overview of business architecture from two masters
Modern enterprises are complex affairs, resulting from evolution and merger. A fundamental shift in the way enterprises are viewed and directed occurred with the publication of Michael Porter's book on Competitive Advantage. Porter created a Business Architecture point of view based on the creation of value and showed how to view the functional parts of an enterprise through this point of view. Since then, a number of other architectural points of view on business have emerged, including capability maps, social network graphs, and strategy maps. From these developments, the notion of a Business Architecture that integrates multiple points of view and makes them consistent with one another has emerged.Ulrich and McWhorter are key leaders in the creation of Business Architecture as a discipline and practice supporting business transformation. In this book, they provide an accessible explanation of what Business Architecture is about, how it deals with complexity, how to practice it, and how to organize and leverage it within an enterprise. They bring strong backgrounds in systems architecture to this task, making the book particularly valuable to those with a background in a systems architecture discipline such as IT architecture. In addition, this is an excellent overview of the techniques and value results of applying an architectural practice to business concerns and complements the longstanding case study approach to understanding and directing a business enterprise.
A**R
Must Read for Business Analysts, Management, and Executives
As a business analyst, I was looking for ways to create models of the business that can help promote re-usability and transparency into business processes. I specifically wanted to more effectively conduct an impact analysis for proposed initiatives, identify redundancies in business practices, and highlight areas in need for realignment or improvement. I came across the Business Architecture book after discovering the Business Architecture Guild through some internet searches (a non-profit organization that is seeking to develop the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge -- BIZBOK), of which the author is a founding member.The book is written very well, focuses on the business and not IT (a pitfall of many other books on the subject), and provides a variety of ways to think about business architecture and implement it. It's clear that the author writes from a variety of experiences and not from unfounded theory. But more importantly, the book provided me with the answers I sought which was how to model the business in more effective ways to help develop a business road-map which in turn can be leveraged by IT to create an IT road-map. This book is a must read for anyone in a position to make strategic decisions or implement projects that drive change.
D**S
and it does a good job on motivation for practicing Business Architecture and establishing ...
The book covers a very important area, and it does a good job on motivation for practicing Business Architecture and establishing Business Architecture Center of Excellence within a companies. However, it falls short on providing a clear framework or more detailed consistent examples on how to build, use, and govern business architecture. The discussion stays at a high-level and gets really boring soon - after reading the first half, I just browsed through the second half as I did not feel as I was getting value on investing my time on it. I was a bit disappointed as I expected much more from the authors who are co-founders of Business Architecture Guild and active members of OMG. My overall feeling is like this would make a great 60 minutes keynote presentation, but the content was transformed into a book with adding little substance, which obviously does not work...
K**.
Good, but lacking in practical examples
The book was okay in terms of providing clarity on why BA is necessary, but came short in providing useful tools to use besides "determine your company's needs and build from there". Some more emphasis on and examples of tried and tested models would have been useful to provide a framework of reference.
C**K
Informative
I tabbed several pages in this book since I know I'll be going back into it for useful information. Though at a high level, the book does a good job at convincing the reader about the value Business Architecture can provide.
W**R
Very primitive portrait of true BA & BT.
The book gives some partial high-level overview of the things most people already know as common sense in Business Analysis/IT world. Once again, a highly critical subject is explained to the level of doing some paperwork and simplified task that is easy to sell to customers/practitioners. Business Architecture is the architecture of business itself; it is Engineering of Business and it goes deeper into Informatics and composite modeling of business. Customers and practitioners deserve to learn much more than a simple explanation. Only then this wonderful concept shall be practiced in its true form to benefit the businesses around the world.
W**E
good structured introduction
Very good structured introduction to Business Architecture all aspects are reviewed. But experienced BA's can use more details and approaches for common issue in this domain.
A**D
Good Book but needs refreshing
This book is a great book to learn about business architecture. I think the books needs to be refreshed with a new version to reflect changes an evolution in this field
P**H
Good introduction to Business Architecture
This book aims to provide an overview of business architecture to executives and managers so they can understand the value of business architecture as well as an introduction to professionals embarking on a career in business architecture.The first two chapters look at what Business Architecture is and why it is important. The concept of a business architecture blueprint is introduced giving the enterprise visibility to it's current and future structure. Also a business architecture dashboard is described giving visibility to key retrospective and prospective metrics. Most importantly chapter two outlines the source of business architecture data - the Business Architecture Knowledgebase. A high level description of some data entities are provided and some suggestions on how to implement, but this is a brief conceptual introduction rather than prescriptive template.The next two chapters investigate options in organisationally setting up a business architecture team for success including how to handle the relationship with IT. Reasonable detail is provided in how to structure and align business architecture teams in multi-team organisations. Also some discussion entails on the boundary with IT and the benefits of having a business architecture team distinct from an IT architecture team. These are important concepts but are easily observed and possibly did not warrant two chapters - One handling both subjects would probably have sufficed allowing for more detail provided on the operational and practical techniques of a business architect.The last two chapters cover how to use Business Architecture in practice. They include an introduction to capabiltiy-based analysis and discussions on various business scenarios ranging from operational cost reduction to mergers and acquisitions. These discussions only briefly touch on the important points in each scenario and one wonders how much value such a cursory examination adds to the book.The authors are the co-founders of the Business Architecture Guild and sometimes refer to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge (BIZBOK). The alignment with that content means that this book can be viewed as an introduction to that more detailed work. Viewed as such it's lack of detail in practical application is not a weakness. As a conversational introduction that introduces concepts in an engaging manner it succeeds admirably.
G**E
Wichtiges Thema, Wenig Inhalt, Billige Produktion
Ich schließe mich dem vorherigen Leser an, Dieses Buch motiviert das Thema, gibt ein paar high-level Vorschläge, aber das war es dann auch. Es kann also hilfreich sein, wenn man noch gar nichts von Business Architecture gehört hat, aber wenn man wie die meisten Unternehmen an der Umsetzung arbeitet, hilft es wenig weiter. Ich hatte mit mehr erhofft.Die ersten 40 Seiten erzählen mehr von den Einschränkungen der IT Architektur als den Vorteilen der Business Architektur. Das wirkt etwas mühsam. Wenn man sich ein Buch diesen Titels kauft. sollte man annehmen, dass der Leser schon ein gewisses Interesse an Business Architektur hat.Der Schreibstil lag mir auch nicht -- ich hatten den Eindruck viele Worte mit wenig Inhalt zu lesen. Das nimmt einen schnell den Spaß, vor allem wenn man wenig Zeit hat.Druckqualität ist eigentlich ein Nebenpunkt, aber im Zeitalter von Kindle kaufe ich teils noch gedruckte Bücher, weil das Lesen angenehmer ist. Diese Buch enttäuscht hier aber stark. Die Druckqualität ist gar nicht gut. Die Grafiken sehen z.B. aus. als seien sie auf einem Laserdrucker der 90er Jahre produziert. Da hatte ich vor allem bei dem Preis mehr erwartet.
J**H
Very useful book.
Didn’t read the whole book yet but for now the infos provided are very good.
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