My time at Gartner allowed me to take the time and rigor to share all the great tools that I use in my Enterprise Architecture endeavors. One that I think that it's important to share is the "Business Outcomes Journey Map". This is a tool that I've used for years as a macro framework to tie experiences to very specific and deliberate value drivers. This ensures that the organization will not only create a great experience but also make sure it aligns to the strategic goals of the company.
So What are Business Outcomes Journey Maps?
Business Outcomes Journey Maps are used by executive teams (business and technical) as a strategic planning technique and tool to help them self-reflect on their strategy, their core core capabilities, and market positioning. It provides focuses on what are the things they do well (or what to do well) to create customer value and continuously improve their value propositions.
It is a mash-up of many industry proven approaches but put into a format that allows organizations to quickly and sucently understand market differentiation and value creation on a page. Given that it is a mash-up, each layer of the model has its own sub-approaches to them.
When in a workshop style setting I very rarely will start with the full visual. I will systematically break down each area as their own activities but each one provides the context and direction for the next.
Here's an example of a simple one:
In the example, you will see heat mapping and notation across the entire model. In the Bsuiness capabilities area, "contextualized interactions" has a red border signifying that it has a high impact.
Think of this as a canvas, many other overlays can be used. Make it your own!
Here are some of the common overlays I use :
Level of strategic relevance
Business value potential
Level of effort
Cost (Opex & Capex)
Technical and organizational readiness
In Conclusion
Business Outcomes Journey Maps fundamentally shift the conversation of having a "cool widget" to a high-value innovation. Enterprise architects can use this as a tool in their arsenal to facilitate these very complex and nuanced conversations.
You can also check out my post "Dealing with the Communication Divide Between Enterprise Architects and Business Stakeholders" to get some additional perspectives.
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