In this section, we review a number of approaches to business analysis often used by practitioners.

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Video transcript:

To understand Process Architecture clearly, we need to do a quick review of the different approaches to Business Architecture that we've seen practitioners use.

These include approaches based on motivation or goals, functions, processes, services and capabilities.

The motivation-based approach assesses the organization from a perspective of "what we want to achieve". It uses the organization's mission statement as the highest-level goal and then follows a structured process of decomposition to break the mission down into lower-level goal and objectives. These goals and objectives form the basis of Key Performance Indicators that various parties need to achieve, to successfully achieve the organization's mission.

The function-based approach considers the "work that needs to be done". It uses the organization's mission statement as the highest level statement of work to be done, and uses a structured decomposition process to define the work at successive levels of detail. As far as the wording pattern for defining a function is concerned, we believe it should be: verb + object + qualifying clause. For example: "procure supplies from authorized vendors".

The process-based approach builds on the function-based approach, as it is also centered on the work that needs to be done to achieve the mission statement. The key difference is that the process-based approach requires you to understand the dependencies between work-steps to be completed, and it thus becomes a container of a group of functions executed in a defined sequence. The approach uses the Value Chain as the highest level process to be performed to achieve the mission statement, and then breaks it down to lower and lower layers.

Next is the service-based approach. Service orientation has the concept of re-usable modules at its core and it packages functions to be performed accordingly. It requires you to clearly identify the owner and targeted consumers of the service; and to define a standard for that the way in which the service gets invoked, as well as the results or output to be provided; you also need to specify the expected service level.

The last approach to consider is the capability based approach. Although quite common, it is often a source of confusion. We define a capability as “the ability to do something, for someone, at a specific place, at a defined service level, including the aspects of function, information, resource and infrastructure necessary.” So, effectively it takes the concepts of a service, and then adds elements such as location, language, volume or capacity, required resources, systems, information, technology and infrastructure.

Each of the approaches may be useful under different circumstances, and they are completely compatible and reconcilable.

The process-based approach - if done properly, is particularly powerful, as it pulls together the elements of what, who, how, when, where and why.