Who should you prioritize when building business architecture?

🎯Prioritize stakeholders with high interest and high power as they have the most influence on your business architecture. 📊Use a stakeholder matrix to categorize stakeholders based on their power and interest levels. 👥Engage high-power, low-interest stakeholders to ensure their support and mitigate risks. 💬Keep high-interest, low-power stakeholders informed and involved to maintain their engagement. 🔍Monitor low-interest, low-power stakeholders but allocate resources strategically. 📝Regularly reassess stakeholder priorities as projects evolve and new insights emerge. 🤝Foster strong relationships with key stakeholders to align goals and ensure project success.

When selecting stakeholders for business architecture, it's crucial to consider knowledge as a distinct dimension alongside interest and power. Knowledge leaders, often overlooked, play a pivotal role in problem-solving, a core tenet of business architecture. Identifying these knowledge wielders is vital for effective decision-making and strategic planning within the organization.

We can break it down to: 1.Start by "defining groups" of stakeholders and their contributions, such as: Executive Sponsors, Business Leaders, IT Leaders, Process Owners and Knowledge Leaders. 2.Then move to "Prioritizing the groups" based on various tools such as (power-interest) grid 3.Prioritize engagement based on the specific stage of building your business architecture "Balancing Input", Ex: *Vision & Strategy: Executive sponsors and business leaders play a key role. *Process & Capability Definition: Involve business leaders and process owners. *Implementation & Integration: IT leaders and process owners take center stage.

Apart from these groups, I would also add additional group as external group. Building business strategy or business architecture on organization's strategy requires to understand the risks and external factors. Always consider the customer of your business, it might be partners, other organizations, third party and all.

Business Architecture must be based on the long term flourishing of the Company & its Investors as the primary factor. So, the → Investors → Stakeholders → Partners → Shareholders play a major role in designing a Company's Business Architecture. Defining, → Responsibilities → Authorities → Access is the major factor which affects the Operations in big time.

In building business architecture, prioritizing stakeholders with high power and interest is vital because it directly interacts with the organization's target operating model and spans across multiple functions. Incorporating business architecture into a planned or ongoing corporate transformation program provides the correct platform to engage with these key stakeholders effectively. Their involvement is not only crucial for gaining access to necessary resources and support but also plays a significant role in building consensus. This strategic focus also ensures alignment with organizational goals and facilitates smoother change management.

It is vital to take feedback on your deliverables, i.e. business process, value stream or business capabilities etc. Always have a channel of getting the feedback and have iterations. by doing this you will involve your important stakeholders in your work and you get the buy-in from them.

Always engage with high-interest and low power group. They can be your extended marketing team and consumer of your work. Always keep a channel for providing regularly update and make sure you make them understand the rationale and ideas to them proactively.

Achieving quick, visible wins is incredibly important in convincing any group of people that your approach is the right one to deliver results because it brings people who may have been ambivalent or even detractors on-side. Once you supporters on side it's much easy to achieve more and more. The snowball effect.

Understand Their Drivers: While they might not care about the technical details, they have significant influence due to budget control or decision-making power. What outcomes are most important to them? Focus on the "Why": Frame proposed changes in terms of benefits they care about – increased efficiency, reduced risk, competitive advantage, etc. Concise Updates: Provide high-level summaries and milestones, avoiding granular details that likely won't resonate with them. Be Proactive: Anticipate their questions and concerns and provide pre-emptive briefings or demonstrations to win their support.

Don't Ignore Them Completely: Even if they currently have minimal impact, changes in their needs or the business environment could bump them into a different quadrant. Regular Touchpoints: Establish a baseline level of communication like periodic newsletters or project status updates. Open Channels: Ensure they know how to raise concerns if their priorities change. This preempts them becoming roadblocks later on. Watch for Shifts: Pay attention to broader organizational shifts – acquisitions, leadership changes, new strategic initiatives – as these can turn low-interest stakeholders into important ones.

*Clearly communicate the business architecture's goals and benefits to all stakeholders. *Regularly update stakeholders on progress and address their concerns. *Gather feedback throughout the process to ensure alignment and buy-in.

While solutioning a business architecture , following should be prioritized - 1. Sponsors/champion- who own the business process within the organization and responsible for the accurate and efficient functioning of that process. The architecture should be able to demonstrate the return of investment 2. Users - Both internal and external to organization all the actors of the business process who will be consuming information from that process in direct or indirect way 3. Regulatory bodies - to ensure compliance and adequate risk management 4. Community & Society - The business architecture should enhance the business process so that it positively impacts the community, enhance reputation and long-term sustainability.