Objective

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This modeling guidelines is for the Meta Model v4. Here, you can access the Modeling: Objectives and Transformation Items (or Projects) for the Meta Model v3.

Definition

Objectives represent essential business goals that affect and drive an organization’s enterprise architecture.

Description

The Objective Fact Sheet allows high-level definitions and progress tracking of transformation initiatives by capturing business-relevant KPIs/metrics and linking them to Business Capabilities & Initiatives.

The following visual shows the relations between the Objective and other Fact Sheet types:

Modeling Objectives is not required for the initial work with LeanIX (Application Portfolio Assessment), although it can be helpful to include this view already. Adding Objectives allows for the identification of critical business capabilities and helps to create organization-wide transparency of EA initiatives. They become relevant for larger modernization and transformation initiatives where it is required to track the progress of initiatives and their impact on the entire organization (critical view for the management).

Objectives are typically derived from an organization’s business strategy or, if applicable, represent the organization’s objectives and key results (OKRs/KRs).

Examples of Objective:

• Reduce IT Costs by 20% in 2024
• Improve Operational Efficiency by 20%
• Bottom Line / Reduce total manufacturing costs

Guidelines and Best Practices

• Reach out to your top management and leverage defined objectives that drive initiatives across the organization (1 year or long-term strategies). Look into resources like strategy documents, mission, and vision statements/documents.
• If your organization uses Objectives and Key Results (OKR), it is recommended to include defined objectives.
• Add a maximum of 2 hierarchy levels.
• Ensure that your Objectives are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound), e.g., ‘Reduce IT Costs by 20% in 2024’.
• As an EA, work with business stakeholders to
  • map Business Capabilities improved by Objectives.
  • map initiatives to achieve the Objective (which can be represented in the Initiative Fact Sheet type).
  • visualize plans based on multiple dimensions (e.g., time, cost).
  • understand, execute plans, and track the progress of Objectives.
  • model Transformations and link those Applications (available in the LeanIX BTM module.
• Differentiate Objectives from Initiatives. Objectives represent the business goals, while Initiatives capture transformation activities to reach the goals. In the example “A company wants to move internal applications into the cloud by 2025 to increase IT efficiency by 20%”, the first part, “move internal applications into the cloud by 2025,” is the Initiative, and the last part after “2025” is the Objective.
• We recommend using Objectives, especially when leveraging the LeanIX BTM Module, as that will enable you to model Transformations within each Initiative (that supports your Objectives) and show how everything is linked together towards a common goal.

How to model relation between Objectives and other Fact Sheets

You can find a more detailed modeling example in the modeling guideline for Platform. The below view shows the Relations Explorer view in an exemplary Objective Fact Sheet - this is a good starting point to explore how a specific Objective is linked to other Fact Sheet types such as Organization, Business Capability, Initiative, and Application.

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LeanIX is currently working on a Jira integration to provide will provide better visibility into the execution of your transformation initiatives and track/visualize the impact on your enterprise architecture. Read more and feel free to vote and provide feedback in our LeanIX Product Roadmap.

Antipatterns

This section addresses antipatterns involving ineffective or counterproductive ways of modeling Objectives in LeanIX.

• LeanIX is no OKR tool; you can capture existing OKRs (and should do that) but not manage the progress status of OKRs in LeanIX

Applicable Use Cases

We have detailed recommendations on how and when to use the Objective Fact Sheet in our use case descriptions for Application Rationalization Step 1 and Application Modernization Step 1 (same applies for ERP transformation).

Insights from Objective Fact Sheet

Understand which Applications are affected by your Objectives, which Business Capabilities improved, which Initiatives support that Objective, and which Organization owns them. You can use the Relations Explorer for a quick insight or a Matrix Report that maps Applications to Objectives and Organization.

Further Resources

• Business Capability Modeling Guidelines
• Application Modernization