• Introduction
• Service Oriented Architecture
• OSIMM Version 2 Technical Standard
• Introduction
• The Model
• Business Dimension: Base Model
• Organization & Governance Dimension: Base Model
• Method Dimension: Base Model
• Application Dimension: Base Model
• Architecture Dimension: Base Model
• Information Dimension: Base Model
• Infrastructure & Management Dimension: Base Model
• The OSIMM Assessment Method
• Example Assessment
• Benefits of Moving to Higher Maturity Levels
• Relationship to Other SOA Standards
• Relationship to Other International Standards
• Acknowledgements
• Referenced Documents
• SOA Reference Architecture Technical Standard
• SOCCI Framework Technical Standard
• Using TOGAF to Define and Govern SOAs
• SOA Governance Technical Standard
• SOA Ontology Technical Standard
• Legacy Evolution to SOA
• Navigating the SOA Open Standards Landscape Around Architecture White Paper

SOA Work Group

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OSIMM Version 2 Technical Standard : Business Dimension: Base Model

This chapter defines the Business dimension of the base model. The base model defines a set of generic maturity indicators and attributes that can be used to assess an organization’s SOA maturity level against the OSIMM maturity matrix. Additional maturity indicators, assessment questions, and attribute mappings can be added by vendors or user organizations to extend the base OSIMM model.

The assessment questions that follow help elicit how an organization formally defines and documents their business drivers and processes, which ranges from isolated business line-driven to making business capabilities available via context-aware services.

OSIMM Business Dimension

Business Dimension: Base Model Maturity Indicator

The base OSIMM model provides one of many possible maturity indicators per dimension. Organizations, vendors, and consultants can provide additional maturity indicators, assessment questions, and attribute mappings to provide additional guidance necessary for the maturation of an organization’s SOA.

The following Business dimension maturity indicator is provided as part of the base OSIMM specification:

• An SOA maturity assessment of the OSIMM Business dimension is conducted by identifying the formal definition and documentation of the organization’s business drivers and processes.

Business Dimension: Assessment Questions

The following assessment questions help elicit information on how an organization formally defines and documents their business drivers and processes. By gathering information using these assessment questions, an assessor can map a maturity indicator to the associated maturity attributes, thereby determining the Business dimension maturity level.

1. What are the major business drivers for this initiative?
2. What is the business vision and goals, and how are these related to what IT is currently doing?
3. Is your current Business Process Architecture formally defined, documented, and governed?
4. Is your Business Process Architecture complete and up-to-date?
5. How are metrics for return-on-investment measured in Business Process Management (BPM)?
6. How agile are your current business processes?
7. What are the current funding practices?
8. What is the current cost model?
9. Who owns the portfolio of processes, applications, and services?
10. Do you have a cost model to charge service consumers for the use of the service?
11. How do you currently define the total cost of ownership (including software, hardware, and future maintenance)?
12. What level of partnership exists between the business stakeholders and the IT stakeholders?
13. How are business service levels measured currently?
14. What is the current practice to transform business SLAs into IT SLAs?
15. Do you have a formal enterprise architecture?
16. Do you have formal governance of your enterprise architecture?
17. Do you have multiple lines of business? Do they need to have their own business processes?
18. Do your lines of business use a common information model? Is the data shared or replicated?
19. Do your lines of business share customers, suppliers, or partners?

Business Dimension: Maturity Indicator-to-Attribute Mapping

The following are the base set of maturity indicators for the OSIMM Business dimension. Each maturity indicator is associated with a set of maturity attributes. Maturity attributes are those observed characteristics of a maturity indicator for each maturity level. The assessment questions are used to survey an organization’s Business dimension. Survey data obtained through the Business dimension assessment questions is used to determine the maturity level by assessing the data and matching to the maturity attributes that best fit the information obtained. The maturity weighting is used to determine an average maturity score across multiple maturity indicators. The model can be extended by adding additional maturity indicators and assigning weighting to the indicator by maturity level according to the value placed on the maturity indicator by the assessing organization.

Maturity Indicators for the Business Dimension