Find out what it’s like to work as a business architect in the Australian Public Service.
Paula from the Department of Education shares a day in her life as a lead business architect.
An opportunity to work with the best
I got into business architecture by accident. I was working as a project officer in a call centre for Centrelink testing virtual call centre technology. We identified that changes needed to be made regarding how staff were allocated. I met a group of enterprise architects who helped make changes to the system.
From there, I went up to Canberra to work on implementing Centrelink’s virtual call centres. I became heavily involved with architects because we were completely changing the operating model for how call centres would work: instead of having 35 individual call centres, we’d have one call centre at 35 different locations. This required planning how calls would flow, how the operating model would work and what capabilities we needed.
Like building or renovating a house
Business architecture is about working out what you need to be good at and designing a plan to get there. I often describe it to people as going to an architect to design or renovate a house, which is what a business architect does for a business. Each room has a purpose. There might be a governance room, a channel room, or a service delivery room. The business architect works out how that room needs to be designed to get the best out of what you need to do to succeed, which leads to defining business capabilities. In other words, understanding what does the room have to be able to do? Does it have to be good for entitlement management? Does it have to be good for procurement? Does it have to be good for HR?
Rewarding and widely applicable
I find business architecture quite rewarding because you learn a lot about where you work in government and how government works. Once you’ve got all those basics, you can apply business architecture anywhere. You’re always going back to the questions around the business model, the governing legislation, the financial arrangement in place, and what you are trying to achieve.
Shaping the business of government
Good business architecture is critical to service delivery. As a lead business architect, you are shaping the business of government. When you understand the business problem and effectively plan and connect the dots, the frameworks for enabling change fall into place beautifully, and the pain people feel goes away.
For a particular project, I worked with a procurement policy specialist to clarify financial arrangements in the public service. Together, we mapped out all the ways you could spend public money in government and submitted the information to the Department of Finance. Around 12 months later, the department released RMG (Resource Management Guide) 411, which clearly defines how public money can be spent. Based on our work, the development of RMG 411 was a massive win for us and is an example of the impact good business architecture can have on government policy.
Streamlining government processes
Because of my business architecture expertise, business analysis skills and service delivery background, I was invited to a working group assessing whether to use a whole of government grant administration product. There were many people in the group with different expertise. The business architects convinced the rest of the group that an overarching grant administration tool was a good idea as all departments administer grants using a similar process.
By presenting and using business process diagrams, we could show delegates that the core business process and capabilities were the same. You still had to go through all the same steps and decision points. Only rarely would you have a deviated decision point. After many discussions, the secretaries agreed, and a whole-of-government grant administration product was designed and delivered.
Finding a mentor
If you are interested in honing your business architecture skills, I would advise getting a mentor. I would suggest someone talk to the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) whole of government architecture team. They have a digital space in GovTeams. There’s a digital architecture community which would be an excellent place to put your hand up, in the Digital Profession.
All views expressed are personal views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of the department or agency.
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