Activities are the building blocks of processes, and processes are what sustains capabilities, which define the organization’s business model execution engine.
Until recently, I always struggled with deciding which processes to define. Luckily, I came across a brilliant article by Fred Nickols, in which he suggests a very practical approach. In his article, he points out that we should never attempt to find and name processes, but rather find the activities first.
Activities are triggered by events, caused by someone or something, from within the business or from outside:
They usually require some input, and always generate some output. In an enterprise architecture context, input and output are often information entities. Identifying these information entities help form the enterprise information model, which unpins almost every other element of the enterprise architecture.
Activities are performed by workers assuming a role. You can of course record who’s (typically) performing the activity but strive to define an appropriate role even when there’s only one person capable of doing the work.
| Activity | Event | Input | Output | Role | Tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record billable hours. | End of workday. | Start and stop time. | Billable hours. | Consultant. | Excel. |
| Invoicing. | End of month. | Billable hours. | Invoice. | Consultant. | Excel, Word, Email. |