Building a Function Model in Visio

More enterprise-architecture stuff.

Plodding on with Function Model development for my current client – this model being the business anchor for a whole string of other models such as the Business Systems Model, the Information Systems Model and so on that need to be in place before we even look at developing the conventional IT-oriented models of TOGAF and the like.

It’s taken me about three weeks of churning through org-charts and Annual Reports and such to get to first-draft stage, which is pretty good going – I know that at one of my previous clients they had a team of five working for something like three months to get this far. Good to feel pleased with myself for a change. 🙂

To do this without a proper enterprise-architecture toolset, I knocked up a template and stencil for Visio 2003, and have since realised that it might be useful for others.

Core idea is that there’s just one Visio object used for a business function, regardless of level. (I’ve allowed for up to four levels: anything beyond that gets hopelessly complex on a diagram, and we really shouldn’t use more than three.) Properties such as name, description, source and so on are accessed via a double-click; function-level and business-system allocation are on pull-downs in the dialog. And I’ve embedded the essential property-reports in the template.

So: it’s there. If anyone else wants to use it, let me know, and I’ll write it up and put it up on the website.