Introduction
A company exists to produce a set of product(s). To be able to support this objective we must define mental model spaces. The first one is operational and this day-to-day activities. The second one is to maintain and develop a strategy to enhance/refine the current product(s) along with how the business supports ancillary activities.
We will focus on: enhance/refinement to the current product and managing the strategy:
Current understanding of Operations
An Architect
A Taxonomy
Current understanding of Operations
This sets the foundation of how the organization work todays, this could be a myriad of data points and some examples would be: current offering, current departmental structures and current goals/metrics to evaluate them.
We will not go into details of how to collect this information or if there are other ones that should be on this list. Each organization is different and is structured differently and we will categorize this as a constant, a variable that is always there.. and should be part of any strategies in the future.
Knowing how we work today; sets the foundation of what is possible tomorrow.
What is an Architect?
Architect (ar-chi-tect) noun
Origin: mid 16th century: from French architecte, from Italian architetto, via Latin from Greek arkhitekton, from arkhi 'chief' + tekton 'builder'
A person who designs buildings and in many cases also supervises their construction
A person who is responsible for inventory or realizing a particular idea or project
What is a Taxonomy?
Taxonomy (tax-on-o-my) noun
Origin: early 19th century: coined in French from Greek taxis 'arrangement' + nomia 'distribution'
The branch of science concerned with classification, especially of organisms; systematics.
The classification of something, especially organisms
A system of classification
These are two important definitions which will be used in these context:
Architect - A person who is responsible for inventory or realizing a particular idea or project
Taxonomy - A system of classification
We understand the terms and we have our goal, setup a taxonomy, now we dive in..
Set the stage..
The Architect performing a series of iterations and refinements to define a taxonomy. The taxonomy is living and refines over time and our initial goal is to establish something and see where it goes.
The Architect needs to focus on the business process, it is tempting to introduce technology and it is recommended not to do this. Introduction of the technology/solutions in the process will make the team feel good now but have the long term effect of introducing bias in potential future refinements of both business process and solutions available in the market.
Knowing business functions and operations is the goal of the taxonomy
Identify major business process areas
The primary focus of the business process area classification is around "Pareto Principle" aka as 80/20 rule. As we dive deeper into the process, exception will come up and we want to focus on the standard and not the exception.
The foundation of core business process is the best place to start. The Architect is building the foundation of classification and while it will change, it is a great foundation.
One we have this major theme, we then ask ourselves this question. What are "one step" down functions this area of the organization does (e.g. We build a car engine and within this car engine we have piston, gaskets, rods, spark plugs and oil distribution)
Building on the car analogy, the them is "Build a Car Engine" and the sub-components of this are: oil distribution, coolant distribution, ignition.
The puzzle pieces are identified
Progression of the business process
Know that we have a basic classification system setup: Theme and Epics. Now we introduce/overlay the steps involved in doing each of these. This is where we start introducing the business process of how we go about "Building an Engine" and going to a lower level of granularity: "Build Oil Distribution".
This is the meat of the taxonomy and allows us to visualize the steps at a level of granularity that provides the foundation to see the organization at a whole.
This is where the rubber hits the road.
Summary
The architect of the organization has a pivotal role and responsibility to ensure the organization can evaluate current operations and future potential. The taxonomy provides a set of tools to articulate to organization members and get feedback for future iterations.
Some people may ask, what about the systems that support this process? We want to make sure we do not overlay this into the taxonomy and introducing this adds complexity. The taxonomy is a living document/visual that will change over time and performing this setup allows an organization to see what is available.