EA Principals is excited to announce that we will be the first training provider to deliver the new updated ArchiMate 3.1 training course.
The updated ArchiMate program holds a number of useful additions and improvements for Enterprise Architecture practitioners.
The most valuable improvements to the standard are:
- The addition of a value stream element
- The introduction of a directed notation for association
Value Stream
The most important and visible of these changes in Version 3.1 is the addition of a new value stream element in the Strategy layer. The standard defines this as follows:
“A value stream represents a sequence of activities that create an overall result for a customer, stakeholder, or end user.”
A value stream describes how an enterprise organizes its activities to create value. As described in the TOGAF® Series Guide to Value Streams, a key principle of value streams is that value is always defined from the perspective of the stakeholder – the customer, end-user, or recipient of the product, service, or deliverable produced by the work. Value stream notions also appear elsewhere, in Business Architecture methods such as the Guide to the BIZBOK® and in agile methodologies like the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®). The ArchiMate definition is sufficiently generic to cover these notions.
Adding this value stream concept has created a neat symmetry in the language. Value streams and capabilities reflect an enterprise’s business model and value creation in an organization-independent way, whereas business processes and business functions reflect its operating model and are more organization-dependent. At their respective abstraction levels, value streams and business processes both represent the ‘enterprise in motion’, whereas capabilities and business functions both describe the ‘enterprise at rest’.
Directed Association
The addition of a directed association relationship is a small improvement with great potential. One common use-case is to express navigability, for example that an insurance policy refers to the insured asset but not the other way around.
Especially when combined with the ArchiMate notion of specializing concepts and the accompanying stereotype notation (see the chapter in the standard on Language Customization Mechanisms), it allows you to give more meaning to the relatively ‘meaningless’ association.
Our first ArchiMate 3.1 training course will be held in Washington D.C. on the 2nd of December.
This could will also be delivered as a Live Online training course so you can attend from the convenience of your home or office.