MSc in Business Information Systems

Prof. Dr. Knut Hinkelmann

ArchiMate Modeling in Practice

This is a series of blog entries posted by Bas van Gils & Sven van Dijk, June -
December 2013. I collected them in one document for ease of usage in the
lecture.
Knut Hinkelmann

Introduction1
Over the last few years, the popularity of ArchiMate has increased rapidly and
steadily, especially since it got adopted by the Open Group. A quick search on google trends shows
this nicely.
ArchiMate has been around for over a decade. More and
more organizations use the language for their enterprise
(architecture) modeling efforts. We also see that more
and more tool support is available. Our flag ship tool –
BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio – was the first native
implementation of ArchiMate and is still the leading tool
for modeling and analysis at the enterprise level.
Earlier this year we have published a series of postings where we have captured the essence of the
ArchiMate modeling language, based on many years of practical experience in the field. We have
complemented this with a series of best practices. Building on these earlier blogs, we now present a
series of postings where we illustrate these best practices in the context of a (fictitious) case study.
This posting kicks off the series, and is intended to introduce the organization that we will be using
over the next few weeks.

BriteLite - towards a brighter future

For many decades, Jansma Lichten has been one of the most successful
lamp producers of The Netherlands. The company was founded in 1923
as Lampenfabriek Jansma and renamed in 1974 to Jansma Lichten.
The company’s most successful period dates back to the period between
1960 and 1990. After the 1990s, several socio economic developments have
caused for some serious threats to the company. During that period,
Jansma Lichten invested large amounts of resources in new production
facilities and techniques for the highly successful line of light bulb and light
bulb fittings. Unfortunately, since the early 2000s, the need for incandescent light bulbs started
dropping rapidly year over year and as a result, Jansma Lichten was left with diminishing turnover
and high costs. This was in large part caused by new regulations that will banish the incandescent
lights all together in favor of LED and other innovative lighting products.

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More recently the company experienced yet another setback, due to the retreat of several key
investors as a result of the financial crisis. Halfway through 2010, the company was well on its way to
become bankrupt when a few new big investors were contracted, under the condition that the
current board of directors would make way for a new team that could change the strategic course of
Jansma Lichten and revive its business.
The new Board prepared a major strategic shift for the lamp manufacturer. Among other things, the
company will shift its focus from the national to the international market. Therefore, the company is
going by its new name since January 2011: BriteLite. Since that time a lot has happened:
• BriteLite is well on its way to making a shift to LED-products. Staff has been re-trained
where necessary and plants have had a major overhaul
• A new consulting team has been added to the company. This team works with (corporate)
clients to define custom lighting solutions. The team is largely successful and managed to
secure over 60% of the graphic design industry and also does a lot of work for office
buildings, show room and lighting solutions for events and trade shows
• On the international side, small offices and warehouses have been built in Belgium, France,
Germany and the UK. Reselling partnes have been recruited in the Americas, Asia, and
Australia. Expansion is small but increasing steadily
• BriteLite’s financial position is improving steadily. However, IT cost are sky-rocketing. This is
in large part due to the fact that the board has decided to build the new business on the
old platform for execution.
There is so much going on for the company that the constant stream of changes is
becoming a problem. The company acknowledged that successful business
transformation could only be achieved through a structured approach, based on
Enterprise Architecture techniques and -modeling.
After some debates and advice, BriteLite decided to hire Brenda, a seasoned
Enterprise Architect with many years of experience under her belt to help them
face these challenges.Brenda (a.k.a. Brenda Architect) was hired some time ago
and she has started her new job with a series of interviews with all the key players
in the BriteLite organization. Her key challenges are:
• Quickly develop a baseline architecture that can be used to analyze impact
of change and plot a direction towards a brighter future for BriteLite
• Develop a target architecture and a roadmap for overhauling the IT
landscape and reduce IT cost. This should, of course, be in line with
BriteLite’s plans for international expansion so some flexibility is needed

The remainder of this series

In the remainder of this blog series we will share Brenda’s adventures at BriteLite. Brenda is a faithful
reader of the BiZZdesign blog obviously, so in her modeling strategy she will use as many of the best
practices that we have discussed in the previous series as she can Stay tuned for more!

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Getting Started2
Brenda the Architect has her work cut out for her: developing a baseline and target architecture for
BriteLite seems like a challenging task. The organization is still in the middle of the transformation
towards production of LED based lighting products for international markets and tries to get used to
the new way of working with the consulting team.
There has been some tension between the sales/ consultant teams and the
production department over schedules, time to market and so forth.
Brenda spends her first few weeks getting to know the lay of the land by
meeting with as many people as she possibly can. This gives her some time to
settle in and work on her plan. Three weeks in she is ready to get started and,
after some debate with top management she gets going:

• Top management sends out a lengthy E-mail, letting staff know that
Brenda will be involving them in an architecture modeling exercise to
help BriteLite get to grips with the changes that are coming. This show of
support is likely to make sure people will support Brenda in her efforts
• A small team with experts from business and IT is assembled. They are mainly selected for
their knowledge and history with the organization. However, extra care was taken to select
team members with a good network and reputation
• With the team assembled, another lengthy mail is sent out to inform every one of the plan:
the small team will do most of the work, will involve experts as much as possible and all
intermediate results will be published on a shared network drive. All input is welcome, so the
mail ends with a warm invitation to join.

Starting with the basics: a business function model / capability map

As the first problem to tackle, Brenda gives her team a brief instruction on developing a business
function model. As an inspiration, she shows high-level diagrams of Porter’s value chain model,
capability maps that can be found online and several smaller business function models from previous
engagements. She gives her team the following guidelines for the business function model:
• The business function model is to be set up as a capability map, where capabilities are
defined as “an ability or capacity that an organization may possess or exchange to achieve a
specific outcome or goal”.
• The name of a capability (modeled as a function) is a noun, not a verb.
• The business function model is to be linked to the business object model.
• The model describes what the organization does with a business focus. There is no such thing
as an “IT capability”, a capability is a capability.
• Capabilities will be stratified, distinguishing between strategic capabilities (related to the
direction of the organization such as strategy management, finance management), core
capabilities (adding value for customers), and supporting capabilities (such as training and HR
management)

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In the first round the goal is to find the top level (or: “level 0”) capabilities. This will be validated with
people in the organization before moving on the adding more details. Ideally we’ll at least get to level
2 capabilities to get a consistent model for the organization.

The first draft

The first draft of the model is developed in a half day workshop by the team. Since the team has
been with the company for a while, they have a fairly good grasp of what is going on. After
brainstorming at the whiteboard and digitizing the results in BriteLite’s EA tool BiZZdesign Enterprise
Studio (ArchiMate certified by the Open Group), they come up with the following draft high-level
capability map:

While setting up this capability map, the team reused some information still available from an earlier
attempt to incorporate knowledge and best-practices typically found in industry reference models,
including parts of ISA-95 (see also this blog for more information on using reference models . The
reference models are stored in BiZZdesign model repository, and in this way it is possible to link
BriteLite’s capability map to the reference model to visualize their alignment, as shown in the
diagram below:

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Management agrees that this model is good enough to start with and the team proceeds with drilling
down to more detailed capability models, starting with the core capabilities as these are expected to
be needed the most. Brenda has set a time box of 3 weeks for the capability mapping exercise, so the
team has to focus and dive in quickly.

Detailed capability maps

The team starts with planning a series of workshops, inviting experts from across the organization. To
maintain consistency, Brenda will facilitate all workshops so the team can focus on the contents of
the mapping exercise. Indeed, most of the capabilities have been mapped out consistently after
three weeks with several validation actions still open. These will have to be resolved at a later point
in time. Again, the results are documented using BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio. In this tool, it is very
easy to add more detail to the high-level capabilities by in fact adding a layer behind them. The tool
allows to easily navigate between the layers by double-clicking and hence drilling down into the
details layer by layer (level 0, level 1, etc.). Here are some of the results:

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Outlook
Once the team has finished the capability mapping exercise, Brenda confidently presents her results
back to management. She is happy with progress, as the capability / function map will prove to be a
big help as a starting point for impact analysis. The maps are also printed in a big format and put on
display in various parts of the building with an open invitation to provide feedback.
The first iteration is finished with a ‘retrospective’ for capturing lessons learned, and creating an
outlook for the next iteration. During a 45 minute discussion at the management meeting, it is
decided that the next iteration should focus on a “product x services” mapping effort.

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Where are we going? 3

When work on the business function model / capability map is well underway, Brenda is confident
that she can promise management a first product to be delivered in a few weeks’ time. She has
organized weekly meetings with the team for updates and reviews and things seem to move along at
a slow, albeit steady pace.

This frees up her hands for the next topic to be addressed: where are we going?
Brenda realizes that, in order to assist management in decision making about an
overhaul of the IT-landscape she needs quite a bit of information… not just about the
IT landscape. Both in the baseline and the target situation she needs to understand
the relation between products/services, data/information, and systems.
To start the discussion, Brenda wants to plan a series of short, focused workshops to
gain a deeper understanding in questions such as:
• Who are the key stakeholders that we have to take into account?
• What products do we currently offer, and can we distinguish between
different categories of products? In other words, what is our product/service
architecture?
• Do we expect any major changes in this architecture? Are we going to offer more products
and services that fit within this categorization, or do we expect to also add new categories?
For example: lighting is often associated with interior design, are we going to offer products
and services in that realm?
• Are there important developments in the external world to take under consideration, such as
new types of products, technological advances in production mechanisms, legal
developments etc.?
• What is our operating model (see e.g. Ross and Weill [1])? That is, to what extent do we
standardize or integrate our processes?
• Do we have a product strategy? An IT strategy? A sourcing strategy?
These are big questions, and Brenda knows that (a) management time is scarce, and that (b) it will
take some time to get all of these answered. That’s “ok” though. Getting the information is only one
reason for asking: keeping management on their toes and making sure they play an active role in the
development of the target architecture are equally important.
After some discussion with her sponsor, Brenda gets the thumbs-up for a full-day kick-off session
with management and their strategic advisors. She asks the management assistant of her sponsor to
plan the session in 2 weeks, and makes sure her sponsor discusses the session in the next
management meeting. As she had anticipated, there was some grumbling with respect to two things.
First of all, the amount of time she claims did not sit too well with some, and secondly, some people
suggested that it is “nonsense” to talk about these things.

Stakeholder map
In order to be well prepared for the session with management, Brenda decides to formalize the
thoughts and ideas that exist in her group on the lay of the land in the “stakeholder department”.
She uses best practices from her own experience, but also the techniques as described in TOGAF on
stakeholder management. For documenting and analyzing the stakeholder landscape the Motivation

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extension in ArchiMate is perfectly suitable. Following TOGAF, for each stakeholder she makes an
initial assessment of their power, interest and attitude towards the initiative to transform BriteLite’s
business in the proposed direction. BriteLite’s EA tool BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio allows her to
capture this detail and based on that generate a stakeholder analysis view. One of her draft versions
is shown below.

The workshop
To soothe the emotions a little, Brenda starts the sessions with some case studies about why these
elements are key, illustrating each point with clear examples. She then proceeds with the
stakeholder map …which takes up most of the day! What was thought to be a “quick and easy
exercise” turns out to be pretty tricky. Doing this thoroughly gives her some credit and at the end of
the day she has at least achieved an action list:
• The strategic advisors will work on the product/ IT/ sourcing strategies. The architecture
team will review the results, after which management will rubber stamp them.
• The architecture team is asked to map out the products and services and come up with a
classification scheme.
• The management team will work on an environment analysis using the 5 forces
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_five_forces_analysis> + PEST
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEST_analysis> models.
• The discussion on the operating model is postponed until the capability map is completed.
• The deadline for capability map and (“0.9” versions of) the above products is set for three
weeks from now.

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This is a pretty good result. Brenda and her team are well under way with the capability map, which
frees up time to start on the analysis of products and services.
Products and services

As before, Brenda stars with a brief introduction in the way of modeling, based on the ArchiMate
specification:
• The distinction between product / services is not the same as in natural language
• Services are about what we do for the environment, about added value. E.g. ordering a bike,
or making a payment
• Products group services, where a service may be part of more than one product
• A product may also have a contract, which is close to an SLA
Much to her surprise, some team members had already studied the ArchiMate specification +
discussions on LinkedIn groups, so the team “gets it” rather quickly. They agree to take a three-step
approach: first come up with a list of all the services and definitions, then do the bundling in
products, and finally come up with a categorization.

Results
By now the team has claimed a meeting room for the duration of the project to use as a “war room”.
All intermediate results that are stable enough are printed on posters and mounted on the wall for
easy reference. The room is also well stocked with whiteboards, flipcharts, sticky notes, markers
etcetera.
An initial brainstorm results in a preliminary list of services. Each team members takes a full copy of
this list for validation with various roles and departments: marketing, product development, and
sales are among the key players in this realm. After consolidation, the list of services is grouped into
products by creating a matrix in the BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio:

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The team is aware that this captures the essence of the products/services architecture, but that
some additional services may have been missed. The consensus is that these will be caught only
when a ‘layered view’ is created where services are linked to processes. This will reveal additional
customer interactions and services that should be added to the model. After some further debate,
the team agrees that this is “good enough for now”. However, Brenda reminds them that an
additional product should be made: grouping the products into categories.
The team is ‘unsure’ about this area. A preliminary brainstorm on the whiteboard does not help
much. They call in the cavalry by bringing in one of the ‘old timers’ from marketing which seems to
do the trick. After a quick discussion about the goals of the exercise the team gets to work and comes
up with the following categorization:
• Standard off-the-shelf lighting products: has all the products and services associated with
mass produced standard products, both to retailers and business customers
• Custom off-the-shelf lighting products: is the one the team struggled with. It was hard to find
a name for this category. The idea is that standard, mass produced products are bundled in a
specific way for a specific customer for a specific price. It requires a different process with
much more customer interaction.
• Consultancy: resulted in some discussions as well. With the consulting team growing,
especially internationally, the team feels that this should be a separate category. The fact
that the top consultants are sometimes paid for advice in itself strengthens this
• Custom lighting products: pertains to all the major deals with custom lighting solutions.
There was some debate for splitting this up to retain the consulting / production /
installation split, but the team decides that this is already handled by defining specific
products for this category.
To wrap-up, Brenda make sure the team creates the following ArchiMate view:

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References:
[1] J. Ross, P. Weill and D. Robertson, Enterprise Architecture as Strategy -- Creating a foundation for
business execution, Harvard Business School Press, 2006.

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Two Tracks4
The three weeks since the sessions with management are almost up, and Brenda has heard via her
sponsor that the teams are well under way on the strategy work and that the expectation is that all
teams will finish in time for the next workshop as agreed. As usual, Brenda is expected
to handle the agenda for the workshops and she now has been assigned a management
assistant for handling room reservations, meeting invitations, arranging drinks
etcetera.
With only a few days to go to the meeting, Brenda decides that her team should get
some credit, and asks them to bring the two posters with the capability map and
products / services map along for presentation. She also prepares two additional
posters:

This first poster is to show which architecture products have been created so far, while highlighting
that a lot of work remains to be done. She spent some time to come up with a suitable name for the
“top bucket”, hoping to send the message: we’re doing the Enterprise Architecture, but management
has to give guidance for direction.

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In her second poster, Brenda gives a clear overview of what she intends to do going forward with her
team, based on a two-pronged approach: Part of the team will worry about the information systems
architecture in the baseline. This is a lot of work and requires dedication and focus, ploughing
through one system after another and then connecting the dots. The second track is to start work on
the target architecture, validating the business parts (products, services, capabilities) based on
management guidance before diving into the information systems part and again connecting the
dots. This track requires creative thinking, strategic skills, and the ability to stay away from the
details. She hopes to get some additional resources to make this happen. Finally, as a reminder, she
makes sure that management is aware that at one point they’d better start thinking about
implementation scenario’s.

The workshop
It seems that people are increasingly enthusiastic about the architecture project as the meeting is
very well attended. A large group of 21 people, 4 more than expected, crowd the room. Making a
mental note to discuss this with her sponsor, Brenda guides the group through the presentations.
She is particularly proud when the results from her team are well received. At the same time, it
clearly shows that the other teams have worked really hard to come up with the requested guidance,
but some additional work will be needed to finalize the strategic documents. In a live-modeling-
session using the BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio after the lunch break, Brenda uses ArchiMate’s
motivation extension to create a first overview of the main strategic drivers and goals that underlie
BritLite’s current business transformation initiative. She also takes into account some of the key
architecture principles, and uses influence relationships to visualize any reinforcing and contradicting
elements in the strategic landscape. Brenda manages to break down the results from the discussions
in the workshop into something workable for now, as depicted below.

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The workshop ends with a good discussion on how to move forward. It is quickly decided that the
strategic documents will be finalized in 3-4 weeks’ time after which the newly created concern/goals
map will be vetted. Until then, the current map will be put up on the wall as one of the work
products of the team.
Brenda’s two-pronged approach draws a bit of debate. Management had not expected this call for
additional resources. Given the quality of the results so far, and a desire to keep the speed up,
management agrees to free up two more resources to help out with the baseline information
systems architecture. Also, as a reward for all the hard work, Brenda gets the go-ahead to take her
team out for dinner, recharging batteries for the next iterations!

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Continuing the Baseline Models5

It does not take long to extend Brenda’s team: since she had such “good press” in the last few weeks,
people are eager to join in. Management is a bit careful though, given that:
• There appear to be several competing, informal subgroups in the organization with respect
to the IS architecture, and management wants to make sure the team is balanced
• There is a group of people who will benefit from a failure of Brenda’s project as they have
built up a position of informal power with specific knowledge
After some careful planning, Brenda now has two sub-groups that will work semi-independently on
both topics. There are bi-weekly update meetings so that everyone will get a clear picture of the
progress. Also, there are no real end-to-end plans with deadlines, as the teams feel that this is not
feasible. Instead, they work with a 6-8 week plan for figuring out the next iteration.

Way of working
The baseline team of four people with mostly an IT background starts with an instruction by Brenda
on the way of modeling in ArchiMate. There is a bit of resistance to deal with as this is experienced
staff who claim to have seen it all. Brenda realizes that most of the team members are
experienced UML modelers so explaining a new language should not be too hard. She makes sure to
spend some extra time in explaining the relationships as these tend to be the hardest to grasp for
UML-modelers who have seen the “lines” used in ways that are vaguely similar but precisely
different.

Starting with a single diagram on a whiteboard, she talks the team through the way of modeling.
Most of the concepts such as functional decomposition and the use of services are understood
relatively quickly by the group. As expected, there is some debate about the relations. The pragmatic
remark that “this is how it was defined so, whether we like it or not, we’d better learn to work with
it” settles the debate and the group quickly goes to work.

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The plan
The team has decided on a simple and pragmatic approach with several workshops that all take
about a half day:
• Two workshops to get the “big picture”: what are they key systems that are in scope and do
we have the expertise to model these ourselves or should we setup workshops with other
stakeholders?
• After that: 1 or 2 workshops per system, depending on complexity
• Try to avoid more than two workshops for a single system: yes a system could be more
complex, but ROME (Return On Modeling Effort) should be kept under consideration
The team will document everything in the baseline model package of the shared repository of
the BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio and plans to create one view per system according to the structure
that Brenda has laid out for them, and one total overview that only shows components, services, and
nodes (i.e. the functional decomposition + platforms are left out).

Results
The team starts digging in and quickly comes up with some first results. The CRM system and the ERP
system are early targets, since they are quite well-known to the group, and moreover heavily used by
many stakeholders at BriteLite. This makes it easy to fill in some of the gaps that come up during the
first rounds of modeling, by verifying and reiterating with subject matter experts. In the baseline
models, the architects follow the guidance from Brenda as depicted above, which leads to baseline
models for BriteLite’s CRM and ERP systems as shown below.

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Publication
The two teams (baseline / target) have agreed to be as open and transparent as possible. The plan is
to publish a new HTML-based report on intranet just before the bi-weekly update meeting. In that
way the entire organization will stay up-to-date as to what is going on, which may result in extra
input and acceptance of the results.

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Project Interruptions6
In the meantime, her “target architecture team” may need an additional push to get going again.
They have been researching policy documents, attending management meetings and researching
modern EA strategies by industry analysts such as Gartner. The output has been minimal, but Brenda
isn’t worried too much yet. They’ll get there, some extra “thinking time” might be a good thing as the
most crazy ideas will have faded to the background.

A distraction?
While working on her plan, Brenda receives an unexpected visitor: James, one of the advisors of the
management team comes in with a serious look on his face. Obviously he has something on his mind.
After getting coffee – no meeting can start without it – and chit chat about the EA time, she comes to
business: management is aware of the fact that Brenda’s team is working hard on the baseline /
target architecture but there have been some challenges that must be addressed in the short run. He
apologizes for the short notice, but piles these questions onto Brenda’s task list:
• One of the database vendors is pushing for an extension of the licenses. Management isn’t
too comfortable in making a decision on short notice: a lot of money is involved.
• Key questions are:
o Which products are we using from this vendor, and where? Are we using all the stuff
that we pay for?
o Do we expect to stay with this vendor in the target architecture?
Having a lot of experience, Brenda manages to keep a straight face and promises quick results on the
first question. The second one might require more time. She asks for one week for the initial answer,
and another to get the final answer ready: a swift answer will surely show the power of all the hard
work the team is putting in.
James expected quite a fight from Brenda and is pleasantly surprised with the answer. He hadn’t
expected such quick results and sees an opportunity to “score some points with the brass” so he
graciously agrees.

The plan
When James has left, Brenda collects her thoughts as she sweeps the whiteboard clean. With a quick
note on the group whatsapp , she urges the team to come over in a hurry for an impromptu meeting.
With everyone in her office, the room is a bit cramped. She speaks a little softer than normal, adding
to the effect of creating a situation where everyone understand that the pressure is on. She explains
the situation and gives two simple instructions:
• The baseline team has nearly completed their work. They are to focus on the infrastructure
layer first, complete that in a hurry and generate a cross table of information systems x
platforms to see which products of the vendor are used where. It need not be perfect, it has
to be here fast.
• The target architecture team has a more complex task.
o Brenda asks them to create a deck of max 5 slides to explain the operating model (a
concept that they have spoken about before). Her claim is that the operating model
for BriteLite is Coordination and she wants the team to explain why

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o She herself will work with the collected research (online, books, Gartner reports) to
create a draft framework for the target architecture in a hurry. This will be used to
answer the second question from management
• There will be daily updates via the whatsapp group and she expects results by the end of the
week. She’ll work over the weekend to integrate the results and send them to management
as promised.

The execution
The team is highly motivated to dig in and get results. After a few questions and brainstorming some
ideas, they fly off to do their work. The first updates via whatsapp are positive: it’s a lot of work, but
everyone is confident that they will get the job done. Three days in, Brenda meets with the sub
teams separately to confirm that they are on the right track. And indeed, by the end of the week, all
the results are in.

Baseline analysis
Given the fact that the Baseline team has been documenting all of their results in the shared model
repository of the BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio, they quickly find out that their task is actually quite
easy. During the modeling work for the baseline application landscape <see previous blog>, the
servers (modeled as Nodes) and platforms (modeled as System Software) were added to the models
and linked to the applications they support. Using BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio’s model navigation
and view generation functionality, it is very easy to create the overview that is needed to do the
required analysis. The team decides to have a table view generated by the tool in which they show
which applications use which database platforms. In the cells, they show the node or nodes on which
the database platforms run. The resulting table is depicted below:

Three database platforms are in use. The IPPS application used to be a dedicated application
supporting HRM functions and processes. However, during a project that was completed last year
BriteLite started using the HRM functionality as part of the ZAP ERP system, and migrated the data to
the ERP database, after which a new project was started with the goal to fully decommission IPPS.

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Operating Model
The target architecture team had also done a good job. They came up with a simple deck with a good
layout that explains:
• What the operating model is and why it is important
• The main dimensions (process standardization / integration) as well as the characteristics of
the 4 quadrants
• An analysis that explains that the main processes from BriteLite (consulting, production, etc.)
are very different, but need to work on the same data. This suggests a Coordination model
• In the last slide, they explain that BriteLite does not have a pure coordination model, but has
some aspects of Diversification and Unification as well
The figure below was included in the presentation deck of the target architecture team, in order to
support and explain the points mentioned above.

Target architecture
For the target architecture Brenda has also done her homework. She has crafted a slide that outlines
the layering of the target architecture which will be used to start the discussion about retaining this
vendor on the list of key partners.

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Based on the baseline analysis, the operating model analysis and her own framework, Brenda works
on her report with a hot coffee from her favorite local coffee shop on a cloudy Saturday morning. Her
final recommendation to the management team:
• We are using all the platforms that we are paying for except for one. That system was
decommissioned over a year ago
• Data is one of our key assets. It will be the core of the IS part of the target architecture
• A single data platform is highly unlikely. We most likely need a single relational database
platform from a strong vendor with the addition of solid open source platforms
• We should give this vendor the opportunity to make us a good offer to become that strong
vendor. If not, when we move on as soon as the plans for the target architecture become
more solid
After finishing her coffee, she reviews the slides one more time and sends them off with these 4
bullet points. In her e-mail she offers to present this analysis during the Monday morning
management meeting. With a grin, she realizes she beat her own deadline, delivering solid results in
one week.

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Picking up Steam again 7

Before and during the weekend, Brenda’s team worked hard to come up with an analysis for
management.
Earlier today, Brenda presented their findings to the management team, who were more than
pleased with the results. During the meeting they decided to follow the recommendations by
Brenda’s team and they tasked James with the appropriate actions.
Unfortunately, success comes at a price. Management tried piling up more work on Brenda’s plate
during the meeting. Knowing that a lack of focus on developing the baseline / target architecture will
get her in trouble, she had pushed back and had bluntly stated that this is a bad idea as it would
compromise the important initiative of building these models. She ended her short speech with a
rhetorical question: are we in it for the long haul, or should the team go back to putting out small
fires?
After a heated discussion, management agreed that piling more work on Brenda’s plate at this point
might not be the best solution after all, so other arrangements will be made. Acknowledging the
decision power, Brenda indicated that her team will of course assist when possible.

Back to business
Of course Brenda shared these discussions with her team during the joint lunch. Everybody feels
that the only way is up, so pressing on with the work will be best.

Team “baseline”
The baseline team reports that all individual models have been crafted and proudly shows a stack of
paper. They are in the process of
• Adding additional documentation to describe the various model elements
• Building an HTML report that can be published on the intranet
• Building a big poster that can be put on the wall, showing all systems and relations between
systems
The team leverages functionality that is available to them in the BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio. It not
only allows them to create models and diagrams, but also add relevant data as attributes to
components that are part of BriteLite’s Enterprise Architecture. This data can be used for
presentation, e.g. in a table like in the example below:

Various data types can be used, including text and dates as in the table above, but also quantitative
data such as money amounts. The BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio also supports running detailed
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analysis on the model and include attribute data in queries. Results of the analysis can be presented
in many formats, including diagrams and tables, but also graphs and charts. The baseline team uses
information available about the run costs of its current application and adds this to their model
repository. Using this they can easily generate the following charts:

Three core applications have yearly run costs greater than 100k, shown in the pie chart on the left.
The run costs of the remaining applications is shown in the bar chart on the right.

Team “target”
The team that is working on the target architecture has
claimed a work space on the intranet to set up
the architecture repository. The figure on the right
shows the various sections for different types of
architecture content.
Given all the work that has been done so far, several
sections already have been populated with the relevant
content: the operating model has been documented, an
(older) version of the business model canvas from a
strategic session has been dug up, and so on. Team
baseline was invited to put their models and reports in
the appropriate section so that a consistent repository
can be built up one step at a time.
On the content side, team target has made some
progress regarding the product/service architecture,
which has been added to the new repository. For each of the product categories (see our previous
post “#3 where are we going”), a ‘bucket’ has been created. Each of these buckets lists the main
products. To get to the details, one has to ‘drill down’ which will lead to a presentation / document
that lists the underlying services and provides further explanation.
The capability maps are also in a state where they are ready for publication. The top three levels of
business capabilities have been documented and approved, but one of the team members is still
busy fleshing out the detailed documentation that is required to be able to use the map. The team
decides to retain the stratified presentation (see our previous post “#2 getting started”) and only
show the top-level capabilities.

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The team is happy to have a first ‘filling’ of the top two layers of the framework as presented by
Brenda (see our previous post “#6 project interruptions”) and seems ready to continue with the
subsequent, more technical layers. The team manages all the architecture content in their EA
solution “BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio”, where they can drill down into the various diagrams from
their Start Page, as shown in the screenshot below.

Strategies
In the meantime, the management team has kept the pressure on their advisors as well. They have
been fleshing out the requested strategic direction but is still struggling with the details. Brenda has a
short meeting with them, and returns with the following notes:
For manufacturing:
• The production machines come with their own software
• Any planning + manufacturing software that needs to sit on top will have to be purchased
Standard capabilities (such as CRM and ERP) are supported with standard COTS systems.
• Best of breed
• Only build these if the mismatch with target architecture will cause major issues in the future
Other systems should be built in-house
• Preference for open source tools
• Seek implementation partners for extra capacity when necessary
Do the important things first
• The production systems are (almost) in place so do not start there
• Work on supporting the standard capabilities first
Back in their “war room” the team discusses the outcome of this session. This is the first time that
there is explicit guidance and management attention for this topic, so the team is quite happy at first.
A quick analysis reveals, though, that going for best of breed systems means purchasing systems
which may not follow the structure of the architecture too much. After all, the team wanted to split
the “data” from the “logic” which might not be possible in this setup. Something to think about
during the next sessions.

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Brainstorm8
Brenda’s “target team” feels like they’re in a tight spot. It’s great that management has given some
direction for the IT/ sourcing / product strategies, but it doesn’t seem to fit with what they had in
mind for the target architecture. In the meantime, the pressure is on as Brenda has been asked to
present her thoughts on the strategies in the light of the target architecture.
For the time being, Brenda has put a ban on modeling things for the target architecture until a
common approach has been agreed upon.

Team baseline
The baseline team therefore has full access to the repository and is working on links between the
layers that they hope to present next week. Their approach is to work with cross tables and then
generate some views to show how everything fits together. The cross tables they have come up with
are:
• Products & services x capabilities
• Capabilities x systems
o This should also validate the application services that have been defined
• Systems x infrastructure
o Which should validate the infrastructure services that have been defined

Also, the baseline team finished the application landscape. Using the BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio,
they generated and published an HTML report for stakeholders to browse and analyze the content.
The report allows readers to navigate the model and dynamically show / hide attribute information
to get to the required level of detail. The example below visualizes BriteLite’s application landscape,
showing application type as a color, and the operational-since date as a label.

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Team target
The team working on the target
architecture has spent most of the day
on a brainstorm in front of the
whiteboard. Several approaches have
been tried and the team slowly gets
around to the idea that strategy and
the architecture framework can be
reconciled.
After yet another coffee break, one of
the team members hooks up his iPad
to the projector and explains what he
came up with during the break.
The key to solving the puzzle, in his
view, is to consider a system as a
collection of data and functionality. In
that case, part of the system would be
in the systems of innovation layer,
another part of the systems of
record layer. Moreover, the layer can be complemented with separate (master) data management
stores for key entities such as customer and product. The reporting systems (a data warehouse) can
also be in this layer.

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The team wants to know why an MDM solution is required if we go for best-of-breed solutions. It is
Brenda who can answer that: because several of these best-of-breed systems will require access to
the same data! Using an MDM hub will also be a good step in getting a data management capability
off the ground. She quickly pulls up a slide to show the key functionality of MDM systems to explain
the line of reasoning:

Moving on
The team agrees that this approach would solve many issues, but recognizes that it would also be
expensive. Still working at the whiteboard, they figure out a story line to present to management
that shows:
• How the target architecture works
o With a brief overview of BiModal IT and Pace layering
• How the new strategies and target architecture fit together
• What the consequences will be
• Illustrating the cost (ball-parking, it is too early for a detailed financial analysis)
• Illustrating benefits and risks of following this approach

Brenda will maintain the ban on modeling until management has approved this direction. While
“waiting”, the team sets out to come up with a list of key applications + main functions + data objects
that will most likely be used.

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Wrapping up the baseline architecture9

Early in the week, the baseline team announces that they are almost done with their work. There are
a few more points to flesh out, but overall the structure is there. The team has brought along the
following diagram to illustrate their way of working:

Brenda is quite proud that her team manages to convey their approach so well, especially when the
baseline team explains that they have also used the modeling tool to generate several layered views
to verify insights with stakeholders in the organization. They intend to publish a small set of these
layered views as posters by the end of the week, together with all the cross tables. The HTML report
on the intranet site is also to be updated with the latest insights.
At the end of the team meeting, Brenda asks the baseline team if they require further assistance to
make sure the deadlines are met, and encourages the team to also write a newsletter that will be
distributed to all stakeholders in the organization. The team is confident that they will make the
deadline so everyone can go back to their task.

The results
At the end of the week, both the baseline team and the target team are proud to announce that they
have completed their task. The baseline team gets to present their findings first, and distributes big
sheets of paper that show the cross tables they have made:

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Application x Capability Matrix generated using the BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio

Node x Application Matrix generated using the BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio

They have also printed out several layered views, and explain that they want to do a demo for
interested stakeholders to show how easy it is to do analyses on the baseline model. This idea is well
received and the team will schedule this for next week.
The target team has worked on a presentation that illustrates the business-focused nature of the
target architecture, and illustrates the main concepts of Pace Layering and BiModal IT, as this is the
basis for the target architecture. It also shows the relation to the MDM components in the systems of
record layer and explains the way this maps to the business strategies that are close to being signed
off.

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This (first) part of the presentation goes quite well. Especially the business focus, and the different
development “paces” are well received. However, there is also some impatience and push-back:
management seems to be in a “we-are-different” mood, and is not looking for “academic”
discussions on development
pace. With that in mind,
Brenda decides to only
briefly mention the need to
think ahead, to consider
“smart lighting” in the
context of the Internet of
Things, and moves on to the
architecture framework to
illustrate the line of thinking
for the target architecture.

She pulls up a simplified

PowerPoint version of the
results from the brainstorm
and sets out to explain how, in this setup, data will be the core of the architecture. The SOR layer will
be built with standard, off the shelf tools, including a Master Data Management hub – and is careful
not to go into detail as to what that entails: this is a discussion for next time. It will be supported with
(data management) processes to make sure data will stay consistent and of high quality.
Continuing the discussion, she then explains how best-of-breed systems can be purchased to support
the key capabilities of the organization. This requires strong data integration, a topic that will be
discussed later. She also links back to the general notion of supporting manufacturing with a
standard Manufacturing Execution System (MES), while keeping the new policies in mind. This will
streamline planning and production processes while the separate “data core” (systems of record)
entails control over the data.
While some people seem to “glaze over”, several of the key players seem to understand the benefits
of such an approach, but sense a “catch”. After explaining that flexibility and control isn’t “free”, she
argues the case for an integration layer and stresses the cost/ benefit aspects rather than the
technology itself. In her presentation she tried as much as possible to make clear that the advantages
of using an integration layer fit really well with the ideas of the target architecture that her team

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came up with so far. But at the same time, there are arguments against adding an integration layer
into the enterprise architecture, as shown in the table below:
Advantages Disadvantages

Supports loose coupling of applications (Systems

Higher cost through additional technology
of Differentiation)

Central management of data (promotes reuse of Higher complexity because of extending the
data for reporting, easier auditing) application/technology landscape

Opportunity to leverage use and analysis of

Increased vulnerability (single point of failure)
integrated data that otherwise remains separated

Scalability, easy to plug in additional source Requires an Enterprise Data Model that all
and/or target systems stakeholders should agree on

Supports “think big, start small”, easy to adopt

Requires solid and coordinated organization in
and implement in an incremental and controlled
terms of (data management) processes
way
Advantages and disadvantages of using an integration layer in the Enterprise Architecture

While, again, there is some push-back, there is also support for her approach: management
appreciates being involved so early, but doesn’t understand enough of the impact to decide either
way. Understanding the need for approval / guidance, the agreement is that the team can continue
for now, but will have to come back with a more formal analysis later.
Brenda shares the good news with her team and gives them the green light for scheduling some
modeling sessions for the target architecture, starting with the IT landscape.

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Fleshing out the MDM part10

The team is excited about the news that they can go ahead with fleshing out the target architecture.
They are particularly enthusiastic about going for a combination of best-of-breed systems mixed with
an MDM solution. There is still some caution as Brenda has made it very clear that there was some
‘glazing over’ during the presentation. As before, the team decides to work in two sub teams: one
team will do a “road show” to illustrate the concept of MDM to increase management buy-in, while
the other team fleshes out the technical details.

Explaining MDM
Realizing that they target a mixed audience, the team creates a poster rather than a PowerPoint
presentation, and makes sure that there is just enough there to warrant a good debate without
adding too much technical details:

They have set up meetings with all the executives and relevant staff for 45 minute lunch sessions.
The results are somewhat surprising. The team started with an explanation of the challenges: what if
you want a 360 view of your customer? What if you want to consolidate data and create a single
view of your product and services across the entire enterprise? A siloed approach won’t work that
well. This meets with some skepticism (“Just dump the data in a single store!”) initially, but the
example on the right makes it clear that this may not be as simple as it seems. Without going into the
details, the team explains that there are various solution alternatives that all fall under the “MDM
umbrella”. The target architecture will have to show which of the options is most relevant for the
architecture of BriteLite, given its best-of-breed / data core approach.

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The result of this exposé is that the skepticism slowly wanes. There may not be real buy-in yet, but at
least there is no push-back either. The design team will have to do a good job of showing the solution
alternative.

What are the options?

The “design team” meets on Monday morning and after coffee, cookies and discussing the latest
sports results (“how about them Blue Jays, eh!?”) they gather in front of the whiteboard, and discuss
the following assumptions:
• We will select several systems that are best of breed, for CRM, ERP, MES etc.
• A full list of functionalities will be decided on later. The details are not so important, but the
integration mechanism is
• We may select a single vendor with a suite but we could also go for separate systems from
different vendors
Initially there is quite
a bit of debate on the
vendor issue, until
one team member
suggests that this is
not a decision they
can make on short
notice as it all
depends on a more
thorough analysis
of requirements and
offerings. In other
words, the team will
have to work on
two scenarios as illustrated by the whiteboard sketch. A more definite course of action will be
decided upon based on the discussions. The team expects this to be a ‘tough sell’ as MDM solutions
require a lot of up-front investment that must be made before the benefits can be reaped.
It is decided that Brenda will have to open up this discussion with management and the team that is
working on the three strategies. In the meantime, the team will start working on the co-
existence pattern with a focus on systems, integration / data, and relevant capabilities

MDM – the co-existence pattern

The team starts by exploring the co-existence pattern in more detail. In this pattern, all source
systems keep their own data, based on the data model specific for the source system. All source
systems are connected to the MDM hub which receives every update in the source system to any of
the data entities that are managed by the MDM hub. The MDM hub make sure that these updates
are also pushed to other systems in the landscape, including other source systems, downstream
systems, as well as analytical systems. The MDM hub uses dedicated functions in order to define and
maintain “golden records” for a range of data entities. The team created the following diagram
describing the co-existence MDM strategy, which provides the team with excellent guidance for
creating the target architecture specific for the BriteLite organization.

The diagram uses the usual ArchiMate concepts to model things like application components and
flow relations. By using specialization of ArchiMate concepts, the different MDM roles of the objects
in the diagram can be visualized. In this case, specialized objects are identified with an icon: the
application component with the crown icon is an MDM system. Application functions modeled as

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part of the MDM hub include data storing

functions (the database icon), and processing
functions (the double gear icon).
The team then starts building on this pattern,
and creates a first draft of the target
application landscape for the standard
capabilities. The landscape is visualized
below. The transaction systems CRM, ERP,
and MES should provide functionalities
according to the needs of BriteLite. However,
as concluded before, a full requirements
analysis of application functionality is yet to
be made. At this point, only the data storing
functions are identified as part of the
transaction systems, other functionalities will be added to the model at a later point in time. For
now, the diagram focuses on the integration aspect of the architecture based on the co-existence
pattern.

While the view is very “high-level”, the team is happy to be able to visualize why the MDM-solution is
important for BriteLite. This diagram is expected to help in discussions on data quality, being able to
deliver operational / management reports quickly, and to make sure that the various systems have
access to the same data.
The team also starts thinking about the deployment perspective of the target architecture. The
diagram above identifies the applications and shows that data is exchanged between components.
Using technology layer concepts from the ArchiMate language, the team models an initial overview
of the target technology landscape. This identifies technologies such as ESB and ETL that provide
functionality to support the exchange of information among objects in the IT landscape.

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The diagram serves as a starting point. In a later stage, more detail has to be added including the
database platforms and application deployment technologies to support the application landscape.
For now, placeholders already have been added.

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Reference Models11
Fleshing out the co-existence pattern was hard work for the team: Brenda had to coach them
through the project, staying away from the technical details such as deployment until the concept is
clearly understood and the actual go-ahead from management is obtained.
Even during the modeling exercise, the team agrees that the only way to show management the
power of MDM is to work through an entire use case. In order to do so, they want to add at least a
few details of the CRM system, the ERP system, and the MES system and use story boarding
techniques to show how the integration will work. The team presents the idea to Brenda who is
pleasantly surprised by the initiative. The only guidance she gives them is to use reference models
whenever possible to figure out the main functions of each of the systems.

Selecting reference models

The team has a good meeting to divide the work. They quickly find out that reference models can be
found at two levels:
• Reference models pertaining to the manufacturing industry
• Reference models from vendors

After a quick debate and some web searches, they find that a side-by-side comparison of several
vendor models will result in a “good enough” reference model that can be used as the basis for the
architecture. Even more, they decide to only capture the main functions as well as the main data
objects, not worrying about infrastructure / deployment and other details too much.
After documenting this design decision and obtaining Brenda’s approval, the team gets to work. In
the meantime, Brenda goes back to management and – surprisingly – has to take some heat!

Impatience
During her weekly update session, Brenda is told that ‘management is happy with the general
approach but results are ‘too slow’. Changes are being made, the baseline models help, but the “big
picture view” is lagging behind and urgently needed’. This comes as a bit of a surprise, given the
conversations and regular updates over the last few months.
There seems little room to find out what caused this – even though Brenda suspects it has a lot to do
with an upcoming shareholder meeting, so all she can do is promise more speed. Happy that her
team presented their thoughts earlier that day, she suggests that the IT part (but without the
infrastructure – this will depend on the vendor) is to be presented next week. An illustration of how
business capabilities are supported with the IT landscape will be illustrated the week after. And then
the team will work on a rough roadmap for implementation.
The management team grudgingly agrees. When Brenda shares the news with her team, she makes
sure everyone understands that the game is on!

Developing the reference model

The team has selected the following components to develop a reference model for:
• The CRM system, which will hold all the data around relations, including customers, vendors,
partners etc.

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• The ERP system will do anything related to planning, inventory management etc.
• The MES will support the actual manufacturing
As a word of warning, Brenda indicates that they shouldn’t worry too much about synching up
between countries … yet.
As a first step, team members try to find as much guidance on the use of reference models as they
can find. After some searches on the internet, they find an article on the BiZZdesign blog website
here: http://blog.bizzdesign.com/reference-architecture-models-with-archimate. Then they decide
to document reference models in their EA tool BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio, by consolidating
information found in industry and vendor reference material. In this way they build up a model for
each of the core applications to be adopted by BriteLite: CRM, ERP, and MES.
This is far from easy, as the team quickly finds out. It appears that each vendor has its own unique
‘reference model’ and integrating them is a complex task. This is unfortunate since a vendor-neutral
reference model can be valuable in this phase of the project. For now, the team decides to attempt
to integrate models from various sources. Each of the applications is broken down into the key
application functions that will support BriteLite’s business capabilities. The other part that is added
to the models by the team is visualizing the key data entities that are part of the data model linked to
the reference application architectures. The example below shows an early result where the
applications are modeled using Application Components, with the assigned Application Functions
nested in them, as well as the data entities modeled as Data Objects:

While the three core applications in the reference application landscape will have to provide distinct
support for BriteLite’s capabilities, the reference architectures show that there are functions that are
available in multiple systems. An important aspect of deciding on the actual target architecture for
BriteLite includes making decisions on what functions will be required for each of the core
applications, while making sure that in the overall architecture all functions required to support
BriteLite’s business capabilities are available and aligned. The other aspect is to identify what
information is managed in what application, and how it should be exchanged with the other
application. For the actual exchange, the team will be building on the MDM patterns as
explored previously.
The team analyzes the reference models of the core applications, and uses coloring to identify and
visualize unique and overlapping functions, as well as unique and overlapping data entities. The
example below shows one of the results of this analysis:

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The diagram shows that some of the functionality and data typically available in the core systems
overlaps with functionality and data in the other systems. The colors show these duplications, as
explained in the legend. This diagram gives the team the insight that it is critical to define a key focus
for each of the systems in the target landscape. The diagram helps the team to define the
requirements for systems in support of the process of software selection. The overlapping data
objects in the systems underline the added value of the MDM solution. The team is confident that
working on the reference models has brought a solid foundation that will help detailing the target
architecture. Next step: the target application landscape!

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Defining the Application Landscape12

The team is in full swing now, very much aware of the fact that ‘the pressure is on’. The reference
models are in a “good enough” form at the moment, and some of the grumbling from management
seems to be fading away. Through informal channels, the team has learned that part of the
frustration seems to come from the fact that an audit (“quick scan”) by an external party has resulted
in advise to management to “speed things up a notch”. So much for careful planning!
Working closely with her sponsor, Brenda is attempting to buy the team as much time as possible to
do the actual work. She has successfully pitched the idea of including a security analysis in the
solution models that she has promised. It may mean extra work, but it will be worth it if this is the
final push for acceptance of the results from weeks of modeling by the team.

Modeling the application landscape

In order to kick-start the modeling of the actual application landscape, Brenda has developed a
simple poster to guide her team. Her mantra is “model as little as possible, but not less”.

Starting with the reference models that have been developed by the team, her goal is to make sure
the team first understands at a high-level which capabilities are supported by which functions / data
in the system landscape, and then do a mapping on the actual components. The mapping on
capabilities will be done as an exercise on the whiteboard and is not a formal deliverable at this point
due to timing issues. The team makes a note to pick this up later. Modeling the landscape also
include clear insights in how data will move from one component to the next. This will most likely be
the hard part to define, given that the team wants to use an MDM-based solution. However,
everyone is confident that there will be a lot of value add in the long run, so the team quickly goes to
work.
As a final word of guidance, Brenda makes sure that everyone understands that (a) this has to be
done quickly, and re-use of the reference models will make that possible, and (b) next week will be
all about developing a detailed model that shows how a single capability is supported by the newly
developed application landscape.

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The target architecture for the application landscape

At this point in the process, the team really starts to benefit from all the preliminary work. The
different pieces of the puzzle can now be connected and transformed into a solid and future proof
target architecture for the BriteLite organization. The MDM studies and patterns, and the reference
application models have been documented consistently in the ArchiMate language, and moreover in
a single repository which is an integral part of BriteLite’s EA tooling, BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio.
This means that creating models for the target architecture is “merely” a matter of reusing and
generating new diagrams based on existing information.
The view below is an example that illustrates this point. It visualizes how the core applications in the
landscape are aligned based on the co-existence MDM pattern. The applications share functions and
data around customer management, order management, as well as inventory management. The data
in the individual source systems is consolidated and managed by the MDM hub. One of the key
functions of the MDM hub is to maintain the “golden record” for each of the shared data objects.
The team uses a “service oriented” approach. Application services represent “useful” automated
functionality for users (human users, or other objects in the application landscape) of a system.
Translating this idea to the target application architecture for BriteLite, the MDM hub realizes a “data
mastering service” that can be used by the transaction systems. To make this picture even more
specific, and to put a focus on what data is mastered by the MDM hub, three “instantiations” of a
data mastering service are modeled, by type of data.

The team also works on the target technology architecture. Team members use the objects from the
technology layer in ArchiMate to create diagrams that provide insight on the deployment perspective
of the target architecture. The example below shows how ESB technology is incorporated in the
infrastructure to support the actual exchange of data between the components, including the core
applications, as well as the MDM hub.

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As the development of the target architecture progresses, it is time to start thinking about the next
challenge: how to get there from where we are today? In other words, a next task for the team is to
start thinking about an implementation roadmap. So stay tuned for the next episode!

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Planning Realization13
The work for gap analysis is in full swing. The team found the approach “a lot of work, but doable”.
One of the team members justly remarked that “getting and modelling the information is one thing,
but maintaining it will be another”. This is surely true, and Brenda is happy that the team is maturing
rapidly, already thinking about the next cycle and keeping the architectural information up to date
and valid. For the time being she decided that the focus should be on the current work. In the team’s
working space she reserved an area on the whiteboard for “things to address in the near future” to
make sure they are not lost.
The team has started with the information systems part of the landscape in their gap analysis. They
keep it relatively high-level and the focus is on showing that the functionality of the system largely
maps on existing functionality, yet the actual systems will change according to the new vision and
target architecture. Part of the team also started working on a high-level gap analysis for the
business layer, focusing on business processes and department structures.
During her weekly meeting with management, Brenda has indicated that the team is about ready for
thinking about realization of the architecture. The idea is to setup a roadmap with plateaus and then
worry about work packages and deliverables. In order to gain additional buy-in and speed up the
work as much as possible, she requested help from one of the lead program managers of BriteLite.
After all, program management is a skill and discipline in its own right and close co-operation will
surely be beneficial. Management is quick to nominate Matt who is both very experienced and a big
supporter of Brenda’s approach.

All roads lead to Rome

Together, Matt and Brenda work on a briefing for the team. Their first priority is to make sure the
team understands that ‘all roads lead to Rome’… in other words, there is a choice to be made. Matt
comes up with a simple diagram that – after some adjustment by Brenda – boils down to the
following:

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Both are well-aware that choosing an approach will require management support, yet they are
confident that management will follow whatever advice that comes from the team. Each has its own
advantages and disadvantages. After some debate, they decide to present this to the team before
starting the actual planning.

Brenda knows her team well, and makes sure this is presented during a lunch meeting, agreeing that
she will take the lead in this. Matt is a getting-results kind of guy and doesn’t mind at all. During the
team meeting, the debate goes back and forth. Arguments are raised and discussed for all three
approaches. For example, the fast approach is considered to be very risky, stressing the fact that big-
bang migrations have a very poor reputation. The counter-argument is also made: a slow approach
will reduce risk but doesn’t get us to where we want fast enough. No one seems to like the “cheap”
approach, which is therefore quickly discarded.

Finally the team settles on a simple approach:

• Work on CRM first: remove all the old CRM “stuff” and replace it according to the new
architecture. This will be a big plateau as it will likely include a large chunk of the integration
layer, the MDM solution etc.
• With CRM in place, the next two iterations should be smaller and extend what was built in
the first iteration. First ERP will be built on top of the infrastructure, and finally the
production systems are added.
• The team feels that such phased approach will give enough grip while also pushing for a
solution with sufficient speed.
The direction is still fairly high-level but provides a good basis for furthering the road mapping and
planning work.

A high-level roadmap
With the approach agreed upon – at least for now – Brenda and Matt go back to the drawing board.
They’re using the baseline / target modelling results to set up first draft of the high-level roadmap as
follows:

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The timeline shows not only the work packages (projects) to be executed, but also the plateaus:
When CRM and MDM go live, we basically transfer from the baseline state, to the first intermediary
state. That is when we start preparing and configuring the ERP system, which will bring us to the
second intermediary state once we take it live, etcetera.
The team also starts detailing the roadmap, building on the models and gap analyses done in the
previous phase. The complete roadmap, as described by the plateaus and the order in which they are
organized (baseline plateau triggers 1st intermediate plateau, etcetera), is brought into the
architecture model by the team, using their tooling BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio. On a detailed level,
objects (applications, nodes, system software representing platforms running on nodes, etc.) are
assigned to the roadmap. This allows the team to execute gap analyses on a more detailed level of
the roadmap. The examples below shows (a part of) the effects of moving from the baseline state to
the 1st intermediary state, from an application architecture perspective, and from a deployment
perspective, respectively:

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From roadmap to program planning

The results from the high-level roadmap are presented to the team by Matt, with support from
Brenda: a good talk over dinner to line-up Matt’s ideas with the way of working that Brenda has in
mind is all the prep they need. The idea is that Matt will help setting up the program so it seems to
make sense to give him a platform to present his ideas and approach as well. While everyone agrees
that the approach is solid and the analysis is valid at a high-level, the team suggests that (a) the
analysis will have to be revisited as more detail becomes available, and (b) management should get
on board as well. Chipping in, Brenda agrees and stresses that she wants to present approach +
roadmap/ intermediates + high-level program plan as a whole to management a.s.a.p.
To kick off the discussion about planning, Matt presents the following diagram that he prepared with
Brenda:

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The assignment to the team is to come up with a rough break-down of the gap between baseline and
the first intermediate in terms of deliverables. Matt would like these to be as concrete as possible,
and include ‘hard’ things (i.e. systems installed, networks to be built) as well as ‘soft’ aspects such as
training. The team gets a stack of sticky notes for their analysis with the warning by Matt that this is a
preliminary analysis so it will be time-boxed to half a day.
After carefully studying the results and grouping deliverables into work packages in a modeling
session with Brenda, the results that are ready for presentation are as follows:

In ArchiMate, as well as in the teams tooling BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio, the implementation and
migration perspective is fully integrated. This means that the team can model, visualize, and analyze
things like programs, projects, and work breakdown structures. The example above shows how the
work for phase 1 is organized as a phased approach that consists of three steps executed in
consecutive order. Each of the steps results in deliverables. Not only can these structures be
visualized, but of course also connected to other parts of the enterprise architecture. Using this
approach, the team can use the tooling functionality to perform analysis and present the results in

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e.g. a diagram like in the examples below. The diagrams show the result of an impact analysis of the
individual steps of Phase 1 of BriteLite’s transformation initiative. The first example shows this from
the perspective of the application landscape in scope for the first phase. The second example shows
results of the same impact analysis, but from the perspective of the deliverables of the work
packages, and how they impact the enterprise architecture:

This analysis performed by the team sets the stage for the next phase of planning transformation at
BriteLite. In order to build consensus for the roadmap among BriteLite’s leadership team, Matt and
Brenda need to focus on developing the business case: what are costs, business outcomes, risks,
resource requirements associated with the roadmap. Not an easy task for Matt and Brenda to get the
right numbers in place, but as we will see in the next episode, the BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio will
be of great help for the team to add the relevant data to the repository and present convincing views
and dashboards to get management on board!

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Conclusion14
Over the last few weeks we have posted a series of articles about the challenges at BriteLite
and the way Brenda the Architect has helped solve them using architecture practices in
general, and ArchiMate in particular. Of course, the case is a work of fiction and names of
characters, businesses, places and events are either the products of the author’s
imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is,
of course, entirely coincidental.
We have taken great care to paint a picture of what an architecture project could look like in
practice, based on our experience in various organizations in both Europe and North America. We
have worked with various organizations in many different branches and aspects of these projects
have made their way into this blog series.
Learning ArchiMate is not very difficult. The basic structure and principles of the language are fairly
straight forward. As always, though, the proof of the pudding is in the eating: only by actually
applying ArchiMate can we really learn how to use it. With this blog series we hoped give novice
modelers some guidance in how to get started. Also, we hope to have inspired more experienced
modelers to try new things and to share their stories. Actual case studies – of successful projects or
complete failures – are very useful for the modeling community at large.
We hope that you enjoyed reading about Brenda and her team. You may want to “get your own
Brenda” to give your architecture initiative a boost!
Happy modeling!

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