Visualizing Business Architecture

The original sketch

I clipped out a few slides from a recent presentation on enterprise business architecture. The original concept was from a sketch I came up with when trying to think through the “process of change” in a government setting…I then got stuck with the sketch, as it seemed to capture what we were trying to say.

This was an interesting lesson for me in the visualization process…to me, visuals resonate most when they’ve been collaboratively created with clients. The trouble is, unless the client has specifically come to you for visualizations, and thus knows what to expect, it’s hard to say “we should create a visual of this” without being met with blanks stares. My solution to avoid puzzlement was to present a sketch…”we could present it like this”. Well, wouldn’t you know, then I got stuck with the sketch.

What I did really like about it – as primitive as it was – is that it enabled a bit of storytelling in the presentation. This was one of those unfortunate “documents” that gets presented on a screen and distributed as a document, and so ends up with heaps of text and extras. But with the pictures, we could at least walk through the illustration to tell the story of change as it trickles through the organization. The fun addition we made to the illustration was the business architecture representation, which connects in with, well, lasers. If I can get lasers in there, I’m happy.