We at Maya assist organizations in a variety of situations, supporting them in planning and preparing for transformational projects, guiding them during these projects, developing solutions, and executing continuous development initiatives. We strongly advocate using a business context in IT development initiatives. Why? Because structuring business operations comprehensively allows for more efficient and organized projects with higher quality outcomes. Moreover, a comprehensive business context structure, encompassing information about all the organization’s legal entities and various operations, eliminates the need to start current state analyses from scratch with each new project. This approach significantly enhances productivity by providing a clear framework for managing change initiatives, which is one of the key value propositions in our service offering.

Process Architecture as the business context in IT initiatives

For this reason, we emphasize the importance of business processes by using the concept of Process Architecture. This term refers to establishing a structure for documentation and managing business operations abstractly to enable

1. Holistic visibility, providing a comprehensive view of all operations
2. Planning and design of improvements, facilitating the enhancement of the business processes
3. Discovery of possible synergies between entities or processes

The primary objective of a process architecture is to manage complexity through a single structure that represents the organization’s various processes, providing overall visibility. This approach is suitable for organizations of all sizes, but is particularly beneficial in large or complex organizations with multiple legal entities, countries, and functions, where achieving overall visibility can be challenging.

Necessity of a business context structure in an organization

Process architecture is essential in a company because it provides a manageable structure for how business operations are linked to IT solutions. By mapping out these connections, process architecture enables clear communication, consistency, and efficient coordination throughout business and IT projects, providing the possibility to align business needs and IT solutions.

Moving into a project without a clear process structure involves significant risks. Among many things, we frequently encounter situations where organizations begin to implement solutions without fully understanding the scope of the required changes, which also creates difficulties in communicating change effectively. Critically, this lack of clarity often leads to late discoveries of important aspects to consider, which can significantly impact the project’s scope, budget, and timeline as well as solution quality.

While a process architecture cannot magically resolve all issues, the clever use of it enhances the ability to mitigate risks. Use of a process architecture also, in our view, increases the likelihood of creating high-quality solutions that can be implemented within realistic schedules and serve the business effectively for many years.

How to get started

Creating a process architecture and ensuring robust process documentation requires commitment from multiple stakeholders within the organization. It involves overcoming initial inertia, but once established, maintaining solid process documentation using your process architecture becomes much easier and can become a valuable standard operating procedure.

To get started, it is essential to

1. Secure Commitment: Gain the interest and commitment of key individuals within the organization to support the creation of a comprehensive process structure and documentation.
2. Establish a Structure: Develop a comprehensive process architecture that covers all relevant aspects of the organization.
3. Document Processes: Ensure thorough documentation of important processes (process models and other documentation), which will serve as a reference and guide for future development and continuous improvement initiatives.

In future articles, we will explore the different aspects of utilizing a process architecture in an organization, including benefits for projects and continuous development.