Communicate Shared Understanding

The decisions and rules that an organization makes will often shape the various ways the organization is perceived by customers and suppliers. These decisions are not created by a single person but are the result of many people's work, including strategic thinkers, Managers, Business Analysts, System Analysts, Software Engineers, Testers and others. Typically these groups work in different locations using different tools and only communicate with each in meetings or by email. The decisions are typically recorded in meeting notes or emails and are developed and implemented by a process of 'spider-web communications' where there is little trail of their origin.

Enterprise Architect is a collaboration platform that makes organizational and project information available to all team members, from the strategists who conceive the need for the decisions to the engineers and support staff who implement them and ensure they are working correctly. The need for a decision is often identified during a workshop, and the initial ideas can immediately be recorded in Enterprise Architect using a Mind Mapping diagram or meeting notes.

A Business Analyst can then refine the ideas and create a Decision Model that describes the decision and the inputs that are required to make the decision. This can include Business Knowledge Experts and Authorities that are the source of that knowledge. The decisions can be traced back to topics in the Mind Mapping diagram, allowing traceability back to the strategic level, and the Business Managers can also see clearly how their ideas are being analyzed and described.