Architecture line, station 4 of 4Business & Finance line, station 4 of 4
Business and Enterprise Architecture
Connect strategy to systems: capability maps, value streams, application portfolios, target states and roadmaps.
- 6lessons
- 3.5 hto read and do
- Advancedlevel
- 6podcast episodes
- 7checked exercises
Tools you'll use in this course
The lessons open these with a template ready. They work for your own job too, no course needed.
About this course
Enterprise and business architects help a whole organisation change on purpose. They describe what the business does (capabilities and value streams), which systems support it, where the gaps and duplicates are, and how to move to a better state through a sequence of funded projects. Done well, it turns a board's goals into a short list of investments everyone can trace back to those goals. Done badly, it produces thick documents nobody reads.
You join Mangrove Market's small architecture team as the board sets a three-year plan: double partner-shop revenue from about $52M to about $104M a year, open in two new cities, and cut the cost to serve a partner order by 30%. You sort 14 proposed projects against the goals, build a business capability map and heat-map it for investment, model the partner order-to-cash value stream and measure where it breaks, assess the application portfolio and decide what to keep, invest in, replace or retire, design the target state and the transition steps, and turn it into a roadmap the board can fund. Along the way you use ideas from TOGAF, ArchiMate and the BIZBOK Guide in plain words, and set up governance that helps teams deliver instead of making them wait.
Each lesson has quick checks, a worked example, auto-checked SQL or JavaScript exercises that run in your browser, practice tasks with model answers, flashcards and a podcast episode. The capstone is the architecture view a board would ask for before funding the partner-business expansion.
What you will be able to do
- Trace a strategy's goals to the capabilities, systems and initiatives that deliver them, and spot projects that serve no goal
- Build a business capability map and heat-map it by strategic importance and performance gap to frame investment
- Model value streams stage by stage, measure them with lead time and percent complete and accurate, and find where they break
- Assess an application portfolio against capabilities and decide what to tolerate, invest in, migrate or eliminate
- Design a target state with transition architectures and a sequenced, costed roadmap the board can fund in stages
- Use TOGAF and ArchiMate selectively and run lightweight governance with principles, decision records and an advice process
Syllabus
6 stops, about 3.5 h in total. Each stop fills in when you complete the lesson.
Why enterprise architecture exists
A board sets three goals and, a month later, there are fourteen projects, several of them building the same thing twice. Enterprise architecture is the work that connects goals to the changes that reach them, so every dollar spent can be traced to a goal. This lesson shows you what that work is, who does it, what it produces, and how it goes wrong.
Business architectureRoadmappingArchitecture governance
Capability maps
A capability map shows what Mangrove Market does in about a dozen boxes that stay true through reorganisations and system changes. You will build Mangrove's map, zoom into the partner business, and heat-map it, so the board's money goes where a capability matters most and works worst.
Capability mappingBusiness architectureRoadmapping
Value streams and processes
A capability map says what Mangrove does. A value stream says how value reaches a stakeholder, stage by stage, and where it leaks on the way. In this lesson you model the partner shops' order to cash stream, measure it with lead time, process time and percent complete and accurate, and turn its pain points into numbers the board can weigh.
Value streamsBusiness architectureCapability mapping
Application portfolio
Mangrove runs its partner business on about ten applications, and nobody has ever seen them on one page. This lesson shows you how to list them, lay them over the capability map to find duplicates and gaps, score each one's business and technical fit with evidence, and turn the scores into keep, invest, replace or retire decisions that say when, why and at what risk.
Application portfolio managementCapability mappingBusiness architecture
Target state and roadmap
The capability heat map and the portfolio review told you where Mangrove hurts. This lesson turns that into a design for the future and a plan to get there: a target state traced to the board's goals, a gap analysis, transition states that each deliver value, a sequenced set of work packages, and a one-page roadmap the board can fund one gate at a time.
Target-state designRoadmappingTOGAFBusiness architecture
Frameworks and governance
In the last five lessons you built a capability map, a value stream, a portfolio view, a target state and a roadmap for Mangrove Market. This lesson shows how that work lines up with TOGAF's method and ArchiMate's notation, and how to govern the decisions that follow so that teams ask for architecture advice instead of working around it.
TOGAFArchiMateArchitecture governance
Capstone: Plan the partner-business expansion
A realistic project with a rubric and a model answer.
Final exam and certificate
10 questions drawn at random, 70% to pass.
Capstone project
Plan the partner-business expansion
Mangrove's board wants to double partner-shop revenue in three years, from about $52M to about $104M a year, open in two new cities served by a fifth distribution centre, and cut the cost to serve a partner order by 30%. Today about 38% of partner orders still come by phone, credit increases are approved by email, shops pay 23 days after delivery against 14-day terms, the distribution centres run two versions of the warehouse system, three of them plan routes in spreadsheets, and partner records live in three places that disagree. Produce the business architecture view the board needs before it funds the plan: what has to change, where the money should go and why, the target state, the steps to reach it and how decisions will be governed.
You will hand in
- A strategy summary linking the three goals to measurable targets, and a sort of the proposed initiatives by goal (including the ones that serve none)
- A capability map (level 1, and level 2 for the partner business) with a heat map scored by importance and gap, with the evidence for each hot capability
- An order-to-cash value stream for partner shops with stage metrics (lead time, %C&A), the rolled %C&A and the stages that break
- An application portfolio assessment: applications mapped to capabilities, business and technical fit, cost, and a TIME decision with reasons for each
- A target state, two or three transition architectures and a roadmap by half-year with dependencies, costs, benefits and funding gates
- A one-page governance model: principles, decision records and who decides what
Check what you know
Already know some of this? Answer 6 quick questions, one from each lesson, and we will mark the lessons you can skim. It takes about 3 minutes and nothing is graded.
Questions
Is this a TOGAF course?
No. It uses ideas from TOGAF, ArchiMate and the BIZBOK Guide where they help, and explains them in plain words. Use The Open Group's and the Business Architecture Guild's official material if you plan to sit an exam.
Do I need a technical background?
Not a deep one. You need to be comfortable reading a system diagram and a short SQL query or JavaScript function; Business Analysis and How the Web Works are good preparation.
Why are Business Analysis and Strategy and Roadmaps prerequisites?
Architecture builds on both: you will reuse process models, requirements and stakeholder work from Business Analysis, and goals, strategy and roadmaps from Strategy and Roadmaps. If you know those topics already, skim them and take their final exams.
Is enterprise architecture still relevant in agile organisations?
Yes, when it is light. The course shows how to give teams clear principles, a few living views and fast decisions, so architecture speeds delivery up instead of becoming a gate.
Is it really free?
Yes. Every lesson, podcast episode, exercise, quiz, final exam and certificate is free. The labs and their templates for real work are free too. Plus and Premium add every lab challenge, weekly extras and a mentor on top, and they never lock the tools or the courses.
How long does it take?
Each lesson shows an honest time for reading and doing. Most people finish a course in two to four weeks at three or four hours a week.
How does the final exam work?
You get 15 questions drawn at random from a larger bank. You need 70% to pass. If you do not pass, you can try again after 24 hours. The exam is graded on the server and you never see the answer key.