What does a truly comprehensive approach to business architecture look like — and how does it go beyond what most EA frameworks offer?
Business architecture is widely misunderstood. Within IT-oriented frameworks like TOGAF and IAF, it tends to mean "the business context IT needs to know about" — covering organisation structure, processes, and information requirements, but typically missing competitors, markets, culture, partners, products, channels, ethics, and organisational design. This white paper argues for a fundamentally broader definition: business architecture as the design of a desirable future state of the enterprise, encompassing all dimensions that determine whether it can sustainably achieve its goals in an evolving context.
The Inspired approach is distinguished by three things: contextual awareness, integration, and meta model rigour. Rather than treating business architecture as a discrete activity, it positions the discipline at the intersection of strategy, enterprise architecture, and programme management — informing and being informed by all three. A unifying meta model, the Holistic Architecture Language (HAL), ensures that techniques spanning motivation, value chains, process architecture, capability modelling, customer journeys, organisation design, risk, and information are coherent, reusable, and connected. Method tailoring — supported by a formal method management model — means the approach can be adapted to each organisation's goals and maturity without sacrificing consistency.
The paper also addresses the practical side: the EVA tooling platform, a comprehensive suite of techniques and deliverables, available training programmes, and consulting services — making this a useful orientation for any organisation serious about building a credible and valuable business architecture capability.
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Originally published as a white paper by Graham McLeod, Inspired.org, April 2012, revised July 2021.