Business Principles
3 min
Introduction
Business Principles are high-level rules that govern how business capabilities are delivered by the enterprise and provide the context for designing and defining how these capabilities will be realised.
Example – ‘Quality will not be sacrificed by cost efficiency.’
It is important to understand the general principles of the business to ensure that any actions the organisation takes are in line with how the organisation has decided that it wants to conduct itself. Business Principles can have:
- A rationale, which explains why the principle exists
- A mapping to capabilities
- Implications
Business Principles can have implications for all the layers, e.g. in the principle above, ‘Quality will not be sacrificed by cost efficiency’, there is an implication that it will also impact the way IT does business, in terms of the applications, technologies and support it provides.
Each layer can also have Principles, but the implications only work down the layers, for example, an application principle will not have an implication for the business – it is the business that sets the direction – but it may have an impact on the technology layer.
It is useful for everyone to be aware of the principles that exist across the organisation. The view shown below allows this and also allows for the organisation to monitor how well they adhere to the processes defined.
Essential’s Enterprise Architecture Principles View
How to Add Principles to Essential
Updated 22 January 2024