Processes: Planning the Steps to the Goal

Processes: Planning the Steps to the Goal

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-5589-6.ch005
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Abstract

The implementation of several modern concepts of enterprise architecture creation is analyzed and real-time business process generation is described. Cloud-based self-generated business service is constructed as a basis of the resulting concept with an aim to increase the flexibility of enterprise and introduce AaaS (architecture as a service). Under particular business request in form of correctly formulated strategic goal the generation of business process model is produced. The result of the generation is cross-cutting business process architecture model, which is approved or rejected/corrected by business owner expertise. During generation all necessary requirements for supporting resources, such as information, know-how, intellectual and professional skills, inputs and outputs, quality and operational risk limitations, control and monitoring, are formed. All formed requirements have to be satisfied by appropriate selections from the cloud facilities and again approved. Finally, after several iterations, the business model will be able to be realized in reality and could be executed with predicted results. Briefly, that means that certain sets of valued and weighted business process replicas are located in clouds and served in clouds. Thus, enterprise architecture becomes a regular service from clouds extending row of SOA in the name of AaaS. In addition, the advanced view on the topic is provided with an attempt to install a virtual SOA torrent that catches services from the internet and makes them available to customers and represents a business service basis for real-time business processes.
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Architecture “As Is”

The “architecture” concept plays fundamental role in organization development and its roots lie in the discipline called “systems thinking” and “business cybernetics“. The system coverage, which involves two levels of consideration for economic entity activities - microeconomics, the level of particular enterprises, businesses and offices and the macroeconomics, the level of economic processes between particular entities. This is the level where goals of the enterprises and other participants are formed as strategy definitions. At the same time on that level all competitive struggles are happened, which are utmost influential for any strategy trace development and that is extremely important for determining the strategic goals of all participants.

In this respect Enterprise Architecture becomes primarily a knowledge management in all areas of the enterprise activity and responsibility. But this very fact makes it very elite and something belongs to a kind of special knowledge like “true knowledge” of druids. In reality under the curtains of mystifying words ‘enterprise architecture’ or ‘business architecture’ it’s impossible to find anything except ‘logic’ multiplied on ‘attentiveness’ and something like ‘dynamic vision’ or ‘ sequence of tenses’. Considering several definitions for architecture:

  • Architecture (Webster, 1977): The art, science or practice of designing and building structures; formation or construction resulting from or as if from a conscious act;

  • Architecture (Gartner, 1993): The outline or conception used for creating a system, its structure, components and their relationships;

  • Architecture (IBM, 1998): The unified or coherent form or structure.

It is evident that IT masters in contradiction to classical Webster have not noticed the dynamic features of architecture, since considering architecture as a practice of designing or result of conscious act means taking in account its continuousness, hence dynamisms. The next definition could meet modern requirements to the enterprise architecture even in consideration of trends ‘Industry 4.0’ or ‘digital economy’:

Architecture is the process of expert and associative creativity (conscious act), which implements the logic and the structure of real-time communicating relationships for business system stakeholders’.

The keywords here are ‘process’, ‘real-time’ and ‘stakeholders’ that actually mean that attention is emphasized on executor’s reflexivity in their working processes realization in real-time management. Again here is a shift of a viewpoint from abstract spectator with statically academic position to the active actor involvement. The use of term ‘actor’ means not to ‘play a role’, but to creatively act in process development.

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