Turn an executive question into a BA engagement
The request arrives as a solution, a vague transformation, or a demand for “a capability map.”
Use this recipeApplied business architecture · Free field guide
Business architecture, made usable.
Business architecture is difficult. The concepts are elegant; the joins are not. This is the real cookbook: how to move from a live business problem to the smallest architecture package that can improve a decision.
- No registration
- No email capture
- No paywall
- No tool pitch
What is here
A workbench, not another framework tour.
Every section is designed to help you perform real work: choose an artifact, build it at the right level, link it to the rest of the architecture, and use it in an actual decision.
35Applied recipes
32+Public resources
10CBA domains translated
1:1Free email help
The cookbook
Start with a common problem, then go deeper.
These are curated entry points for common BA work. The full cookbook continues to grow without forcing every new recipe onto the homepage.
Build a capability map without drawing the org chart
The first draft mirrors departments, applications, or process steps instead of stable business abilities.
Use this recipeBuild a value stream without slipping into process
The “value stream” becomes a swimlane full of activities, systems, and handoffs.
Use this recipeScope an initiative with a capability–value impact grid
Scope is expressed as features, applications, or a project charter with no enterprise impact logic.
Use this recipeStand up a lean business architecture practice
The organization wants BA but starts with a huge metamodel, a tool purchase, or an unfunded center of excellence.
Use this recipeCreate a practical BA starter charter
The practice begins with enthusiasm but no shared purpose, boundaries, decision rights, engagement model, or definition of success.
Use this recipeWhy I built it
I came to business architecture from operations.
I did not begin on a traditional enterprise-architecture track. I came out of freight operations, where decisions had immediate effects on safety, service, labor, cost, and customers.
I was new to the discipline, learned it while doing the work, helped stand up a business architecture practice, and served as the senior business architect during the separation of a Fortune 500 company.
That path made the central problem obvious: business architecture is often taught as a set of clean concepts, but practitioners succeed or fail at the linkages, judgment calls, governance, and translation into action. This site publishes the practical material I wish I had at the beginning.
SCALE
Make architecture knowledge answerable.
Strategic Capabilities Architecture Linkage Engine is an open, graph-first reference architecture for AI decision support over governed business architecture knowledge. It follows typed enterprise relationships, cites its evidence, exposes conflicts and gaps, and leaves authority with people.
Explore the architecture and 90-day pilotField notes
What the recipes cannot reduce to a checklist.
Short essays on judgment, failure modes, practice design, career transition, and the awkward parts of applying BA inside large organizations.
Practice
Start Small, Build for the Enterprise: A Practical Guide to Standing Up a Business Architecture Practice
Practical guidance for establishing a small business architecture practice, building an initial capability, value stream, organization, and information baseline, and using it to support real business decisions.
Read field noteField Note
When the Business Object List Gets Out of Control
How business architects can govern an unruly business object model, preserve canonical business meaning, model lifecycles and states, and connect business objects to automation without collapsing business architecture into data or solution design.
Read field notePractice
From Strategy to Execution: What a Business Architect Does When Execution Never Comes
What business architects should do when timelines stall, sponsorship weakens, execution never arrives, or business architecture is positioned only as the front door to a larger architecture pipeline.
Read field noteFree help
Bring a real BA problem.
Send one focused, sanitized question by email. I can help you choose the right artifact, critique a model, think through a practice problem, plan CBA study, or frame a career move into business architecture.
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Do not send confidential, customer, employer, or proprietary material.
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