Business Architecture: The Missing Link in Strategy Formulation, Implementation and Execution

I am personally well aware that the fields of Enterprise Architecture in general and Business Architecture in particular are an aggregate of disjointed information pieces, spread in too many books, publications and proprietary frameworks. Hadaya and Gagnon have done the colossal work of gathering all this knowledge, skimming it to the essential, and taking a stance at determining what is needed to make Business Architecture a true practice. It is based on best practices and decades of work in organizations. Their work should become THE reference for anyone who performs business architecture or wishes to undertake business transformation by the right end: the organization, what it does, what it ought to do and how to get there.

Pierre Hadaya and Bernard Gagnon have done an excellent job of explaining in a detailed, step-by-step way how to use Business Architecture as a method to implement strategy.The effort to transform strategy into projects to affect meaningful change is a challenge for most organizations. Strategy implementation efforts often get lost in translation and the result is confusion and a demoralized staff that fall back on tactics to survive. Based upon extensive research and deep experience the author’s have put together a path of using Business Architecture that can potentially ensure a more successful outcome of strategy implementation. While Business Architecture is in the early stages as a discipline, the authors have put in a heavy lift to gather current Business Architecture knowledge and provide a potential path for its use. Their work can be used as a reference and stepping off point for practitioners and academics to expand Business Architecture knowledge.

Superb book, well-researched and consistent. Bernard and Pierre have gone right back to the first principles of WHY we need to take a strategic approach to architecture and go beyond the technical to the business value. Their approach to capability modeling, for example, goes way beyond the traditional and gets into comprehensive qualification of what makes up a complete and robust capability.

There are a few nuggets of wisdom in this book, but that’s it. It offers a conceptual framework for business architecture but does not offer any practical or real life example of how to apply it in the business world. After reading it, you will end up with a framework and a bunch of concepts (many times confusing) but no clear idea of how to use them. It made me wonder if the authors have any practical experience in business architecture... Not good enough, try the Guild’s book instead.

Without a doubt the best material on business architecture available today. The breath and depth of the content exposed in the book is most impressive. I would not be surprised if the approach proposed becomes the reference in the field.

Excellent book !Strategy plan and Transformation Plan of this book are gold practices to keep in mind.

As an independent Architect, I often see organisations which struggle to plan and build their strategic vision, and deploy it in an orderly, timely manner. This book present an innovative approach, with the different business architecture concepts in one integrated almost step-by-step methodology; it put in sequences the domains that leaders should look into carefully to sustain the necessary growth of the organisations and bring the expected business value proposition out of their transformation plan. The chapters detail these domains, but does not fall into the pit of describing solely technology but also emphasize the best practices to empower all resources to buy into the strategic transformation plan, including an innovative model of a Transformation Plan Office to support the organisation structure and the deployment coordination, and the change management for employees to embrace this new arising culture.This book presents also many useful take-aways, tools and methodologies, you can cherry-pick, depending on your various needs, such as : governance, process optimization, building a transformation plan, leveraging business/architecture capabilities, spreading a robust communication plan throughout the organization, implement and manage the transformation on a recurrent basis; This holistic approach details business processes, executives decision-making actions, and more importantly the necessary informations flow and related information systems required to engage and support the organization in these operations.In short, if you had one book to pick for Business Architecture, I really recommend this one, it is comprehensive, but clear !

In my opinion, Hadaya and Gagnon provide the clearest explanation on how to plan and achieve a target enterprise architecture.My organization, like many others operating in the financial sector, has recently begun a major digital transformation. This book has become a go-to reference, helping me substantially defining the key, high-level capabilities constructing the fabric of our competitive identity along with the required transformation plan that will allow us to reach our long-term objectives. I recommend this reading to anyone involved in the management and execution of enterprise, business or IT architecture. It elucidates in very practical ways the relationships and interdependencies among major business objectives and their supporting IT components. Among others, it provided me useful insights for better decision-making in strategic investments and project prioritization.

Are you planning to put in place a new business architecture practice ?Read this book first, then the BIZBOK.Crystal clear reference on business architecture explaining why, what and ... how.

Hadaya and Gagnon's book provides a new perspective on business strategy formulation.I personally use their concept for my research and business with success.

Excellent book to gain in depth knowledge on business architecture. Enlightens on how to concretely and efficiently formulate, implement and execute a strategy. Comprehensive yet concise and easy to read.