Business Architecture Guild (BA Guild for short) is the organization behind the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge (BizBOK) and has produced a comprehensive metamodel to describe and analyze your business.

Some of our customers wish to use the BA Guild Business Architecture (BA) methodology. In consideration of them, Ardoq has implemented an easy-to-get-started BA Guild BA metamodel. The specific reference architectures produced by BA Guild are also available to further support our customers. However, be advised that BA Guild membership is required to access the BA Guild reference architecture - proof of membership must be supplied.

There are many diverse approaches to BA in the industry, and Ardoq’s flexible model can support them. You can use BA Guild as a starting point and evolve it to meet your needs.

The BA Guild BA Metamodel bundle, which is free to download and use, provides the following:

This article details how we have prepared prebuilt bundles in Ardoq containing BA Guild BA metamodel and the industry reference architectures for our customers.

BA Guild's reference architectures vary in content but, at the very least, include Business Capabilities, Information Concepts, and Value Streams.

The industries currently represented are:

In addition, there is a common reference model for industries not represented by the above

For more information on the reference architectures, please visit the BA Guild's website.

BA Guild’s BA metamodel is implemented in Ardoq almost exactly as described in BA Guild’s BA Metamodel document, and illustrated below:

(Source: Business Architecture Guild’s BA Metamodel document)

There are many ways to metamodel a domain. You will notice similarities and differences between the BA Guild BA metamodel and Ardoq’s recommended metamodel, which is the basis of our use case guides. The reasoning behind our approach is described in our Seven Principles for Creating a Great Enterprise Architecture Metamodel article.

Ardoq’s implementation of BA Guild's BA metamodel (found in the metamodel document) is broken down into workspaces according to the domains in BA Guild BA. The implemented metamodel consists almost entirely of component types and references directly as described in the BA Guild BA metamodel document.

The illustration below shows exactly how BA Guild’s BA metamodel is implemented in Ardoq:

A detailed description of each specific domain can be found in the Detailed description of how the BA Guild metamodel is implemented in Ardoq section. The component types without any fields shown in the illustration below are implemented with no fields except for those common to all component types. See Common fields for all component types.

Please consult the BA Guild BA metamodel for further information about the BA Guild’s BA Metamodel document.

The easiest way to get started is to request the Business Architecture Guild Metamodel bundle through the in-app support chat. The bundle is available both with and without sample data.

When the bundle is received in your Ardoq instance, all the content is placed into a folder called “Business Architecture Guild Metamodel Assets”. Unless there is a preexisting folder named the same, the BA Guild BA bundle won’t overwrite preexisting Ardoq content. If at first you’ve received the bundle containing sample data, and now you want one without sample data, just rename the existing bundle and request the one you want.

Ardoq created several surveys specifically for enriching your BA Guild BA metamodel, one for each domain or component type. In addition, each survey contains all input fields and references. All surveys are included in the BA Guild BA bundle.

There are several other ways of getting data into Ardoq and these are explained below.

The image below shows a snippet of the Capability Survey.

In the BA Guild BA bundle, you also get access to a pre-made Excel template accompanied by preconfigured import settings set to the structure of the templates. Note that the industry reference architecture provided by BA Guild is not compatible with these templates or the preconfigured import settings. However, you can download our pre-made Excel template now. The industry reference architectures will be released in a subsequent bundle.

If you wish to import BA Guild BA documented in another Excel structure, you can use our Excel importer to design your own data import.

Ardoq enables you to document your BA Guild BA in several ways. If you have multiple artifacts you wish to document in one sitting, you can use the grid editor to enter data in a spreadsheet-like form:

You also have available a selection of out-of-the-box integrations or access to utilize our Rest APIs.

Ardoq creates its visuals based on a combination of the data you have collected in the metamodel, different perspectives, the chosen type of visual, and specific view modifiers. To facilitate your implementation of BA Guild BA, we’ve created some visuals to give you a good starting point. See below for examples of preconfigured visuals.

To get started with understanding your capability map, you can create a Capability Heat Map. In the example below the colors in the heat map illustrates the quality of the capabilities.

For a more detailed insight into capability context, you can use a block diagram and select a specific capability. In the view modifiers choose to view all incoming and outgoing references, to see what in the architecture affects the capability and what the capability enables and uses.

Value streams are a main focal point in BA Guild’s approach to business architecture and are therefore also rich in visualizations. The example below illustrates a single value stream with its stages and flow. The visual is heat mapped on the value stream stages on the field Efficiency and Timeliness but can be altered to use other fields, references, or tags.

If the focus is on the capabilities enabling value stream stages and their quality, add capabilities and heat map them on the quality field value.

Dependency maps are a great way to show several layers of dependencies. In the example below a business unit, its dependencies, and the dependencies’ dependencies are shown. To describe this example, you can see that “Organizational Development” Adopts the policy “Company Policy 1” which Influences “Capability 1” that Achieves “Outcome 1”.

The Relationships view gives a quick overview of a component’s relationship to other components. This view is typically used for obtaining an overview of interconnected components and grouping them based on, for example, BA Guild BA domains. The image below shows an example of interconnected components grouped by workspace (representing BA Guild BA domain).

Want to include requirements, business processes, or other aspects of business architecture (see BA Guild’s BA Metamodel document, pp. 37-45)? Ardoq’s flexible model allows you to add additional components and reference types and expand your metamodel to fit your requirement. For guidance on how to extend your metamodel read Seven Principles for Creating a Great Enterprise Architecture Metamodel. Please contact your CSM if you need help extending your metamodel.

Ardoq’s implementation of BA Guild’s BA metamodel is broken down into workspaces according to the domains in BA Guild BA. The specific implementation of the domains is described in the following sections. Each domain, for example, the capability or value stream domain, is detailed below. Each domain contains component types with fields and references. All the fields and references are described under each domain.

For a full model overview of how BA Guild BA is implemented in Ardoq, please see the Implementation in Ardoq.

The capability domain in the BA Guild BA metamodel is specialized for describing capability instances and behavior. Capability Behavior is used to describe a Capability and Capability Instances behavior. This knowledge is considered abstract and therefore less useful to describe as a distinct entity in this implementation of BA Guild BA. Therefore Capability Behavior is left out of the implementation.

The practical implementation of BA Guild BA’s Capability concept is implemented as a capability component type which describes the capability using the following fields and references:

The Outcome component type is implemented with no fields beyond those common to all component types. See Common fields for all component types.

The Strategy component type is implemented with no fields beyond those common to all component types. See Common fields for all component types.

The value stream domain is usually a key area in business architecture and is implemented in Ardoq in full. However, our implementation differs slightly as Value Item and Value Proposition are implemented as text fields on component types rather than as separate component types. This design is better suited to Ardoq's way of working and provides the best user experience and value.

Implemented component types are:

The Value Stream component type describes the value stream using the following fields and references:

The Value Stream component type describes the value stream using the following fields and references:

Information concept describes a business object and its dependencies to related information concepts. Information concept is implemented the same way in Ardoq as in BA Guild, using one component type including describing fields. The component type implemented in Ardoq is:

A stakeholder can play different parts in business architecture. In BA Guild BA a stakeholder can be, for example:

Stakeholder is implemented in Ardoq using one component type: Stakeholder.

The Organization domain describes an organization and its business units. The structure can be used to describe both smaller and larger conglomerate businesses.

BA Guild’s BA Organization is implemented in Ardoq using 2 component types: Organization and Business Unit.

The Organization component type is implemented with no fields except for those common to all component types. See Common fields for all component types.

The Business Unit component type is implemented with no fields except for those common to all component types. See Common fields for all component types.

* Business Units can be documented using either a reference, a parent-child relation, or both. This gives the user the flexibility to decide which structure best fits the need of the business

“The strategy domain encompasses the processes of creation, execution, monitoring, and supervising a strategic change to aspects of the business” (Source: The Business Architecture Metamodel, p. 27).

Strategy is a complex domain that can entail several methodologies, philosophies, and models. The BizBOK describes some of these approaches in more detail.

The specific implementation of BA Guild BA’s strategy domain in Ardoq is detailed below and is inspired by the strategy template described in BizBOK. The implementation can be used as-is or altered to fit your purpose. The implemented model enables the description of the overall strategy and connects this to objectives that are detailed by a goal, KPI, and a course of action. Ardoq’s implementation of BA Guild’s strategy domain includes the following component types:

The Strategy component type is implemented with no fields except for those common to all component types. See Common fields for all component types.

* Can also be substituted with the Realizes reference from Initiative to Objective

“From the customer perspective, the product is the overall experience provided by the combination of goods and services to satisfy that customer’s needs” (Source: The Business Architecture Metamodel, p. 34).

Product in Ardoq is implemented using 2 component types:

The Entitlement component type is implemented with no fields beyond those common to all component types. See Common fields for all component types. Nor does Entitlement have any outgoing references.

An initiative represents the execution of a strategy, and is often referred to as projects and grouped in programs and portfolios depending on your business’ approach. Initiative in Ardoq is implemented using one component type aptly named Initiative.

Initiative is, as the illustration below describes, a course of action. Course of action is implemented as a field in Objective but can be replaced by the Realizes reference from Initiative.

* BizBOK version 10 recommends documenting the alignment of initiatives to an objective. To document, Ardoq has added a field called “Strength of Objective Alignment” as a single-choice list on the Realizes reference. See the definition of fields in the table above. A visual example of this is illustrated below.

Policy describes internal and external policies that affect the business in one way or another. Highly regulated areas, such as banking or public sector institutions, are affected by external policies that they must adhere to.

Policy in Ardoq is implemented using one component type: Policy.

The Policy component type is implemented with no fields except for those common to all component types. See Common fields for all component types.

All the component types have common fields like name or description, and all component types that have a parent-child relation have a field that calculates which level in the hierarchy the component in question is.

How to load the Business Architecture Guild metamodel

Ask your Ardoq organization admin to make a request for the Business Architecture Guild Metamodel through our in-app support chat. The metamodel is available with or without sample data.

Ardoq’s implementation of the BA Guild BA metamodel enables you to achieve fast time-to-value, and the ability to grow your metamodel as your business architecture matures.

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