Throughout the past years, the demand for business architecture has been growing in organizations across the globe looking for a business lens through which the organization can be viewed holistically to help them navigate change and complexity. Making effective use of such a holistic view might require a significant mindset shift though. Truly embracing a business architecture mindset in an organization means consistently thinking in wholes rather than in separate parts. It’s such a big picture thinking, or in other words, that kind of holistic thinking, which is at the heart of a business architecture mindset.
Thinking holistically can manifest in various ways though. To dig a little deeper into the holistic nature of a business architecture mindset, this blog post suggests to use HOLISTIC as an acronym representing eight fundamental characteristics of a true business architecture mindset:
- Horizontal
- Open-minded
- Long-term
- Intentional
- Synergy-oriented
- Transparent
- Interdisciplinary
- Collaborative
Horizontal
The cornerstone of a business architecture mindset is an ecosystem-wide scope. It’s not about a specific function, division, or department, it’s ultimately always the entire organization and the ecosystem in which it operates that a business architecture minded individual cares about. Adopting a horizontal view of the organization, it’s much about thinking big and wide across the different units in an organization, as opposed to narrowly focused considerations in problem solving, decision making, and solution development. Viewing the organization in a cohesive way certainly is a fundamental aspect of a true business architecture mindset.
Open-minded
A business architecture mindset is inherently open. In fact, thinking and acting like a business architect means being open-minded in various ways. It means being open to novel ideas and change, open to different views on a subject, open to inputs from different disciplines and professions, open to partner with various other stakeholders in the organization, and more. Without such a sense of openness, some of the other major characteristics of a true business architecture mindset (as outlined in this blog post) might become hardly satisfiable.
Long-term
Another important aspect of a business architecture mindset is time. A business architecture minded individual is driven by long-term considerations. It’s not just about how things currently are or how to soon get certain issues resolved, e.g., with some new solution being put in place. It’s more about thinking long-term, always looking ahead and wondering about what could and should be coming next to help the organization improve as a whole. It’s therefore less about short-term optimization, but more about how things will play out long term.
Intentional
Adopting a business architecture mindset essentially also means being intentional about the organization and its future state. Rather than “letting things happen” and getting stuck in fixing today’s problems, thinking is more oriented towards actively shaping the future of the organization in order to meet tomorrow’s needs and deliver on a defined purpose and value proposition most effectively.
Synergy-oriented
A business architecture mindset comes with a relentless drive to identify synergies and mutual benefits that can be leveraged across different business units in the organization. A business architecture minded individual might constantly be seeking areas of commonality in the organization that could become opportunities for sharing resources and solutions, for scaling investments, or for coordinating and aligning change across different entities in the organization. It’s ultimately more about what we have in common and what unites us in the organization rather than what separates us. That kind of thinking is key to a business architecture mindset.
Transparent
A high pursuit of transparency belongs to the most fundamental characteristics of a business architecture mindset. A business architecture minded individual would always strive to make things transparent and achieve clarity about any impacts and dependencies, aiming to enable objective decision making and counter any politics, pressure to move fast, and whatever else one might face. If then decisions are still made based on what might be best just for a particular area and not for the greater good (i.e., the entire organization), this is something that one would at least want to have made transparent.
Interdisciplinary
A business architecture mindset is interdisciplinary at its very core. A business architecture minded individual values and constantly looks for inputs and approaches from various disciplines and seeks to combine and blend those most effectively for the sake of helping the organization transform and improve. Of course, that might include methods from the business architecture discipline itself to serve as a foundation, but those will likely be blended with approaches from various other disciplines.
Collaborative
A business architecture mindset is collaborative. Acknowledging that it takes different teams (and abilities) in an organization working together to deliver, operate, and transform things in the most effective way, cross-organization collaboration and partnership, as opposed to thinking and working in organizational silos, is what will inevitably come to the forefront of attention with the adoption of a business architecture mindset.
In summary, the HOLISTIC acronym is meant to be used as a mnemonic device to identify, establish, and memorize essential characteristics of a business architecture mindset: horizontal, open-minded, long-term, intentional, synergy-oriented, transparent, interdisciplinary, and collaborative. Whether or not you call yourself a business architect, this is what it needs to adopt and fully embrace a mindset with thinking in wholes being at its heart. If you would like to discuss things in further detail or if you are interested in our business architecture advisory or training services to help you cultivate this kind of mindset, please don’t hesitate to drop us a message.