IRIS Business Architect

Must-have for Business Architects

Kommentare: Very happy with experience of this software overall.

Vorteile:

Extremely intuitive interface. Ties directly to the Business Architecture Guild's Book of Knowledge. Deep features and customizable functionality are standard out of the box. Great try-before-you-buy option. Support is the best I've ever seen. They're responsive and actually solve each problem identified very quickly.

Nachteile:

local interface can be hurt by memory leaks or other buggy conditions from time to time. Upcoming SaaS model should resolve this, but local/shared DB installations require patience for saving often and being prepared for an unexpected lock-up when performing heavy work or diagraming within the application.

Using IRIS Business Architect in a large enterprise.

Kommentare: Use of IRIS in large enterprise environments requires careful planning and co-ordination. Business architecture is one of many architecture disciplines. Enterprises with mature DevOps practices/tooling (such as JIRA/Confluence), IT service management practices (that may use tooling such as ServiceNow), and/or established enterprise/IT architecture practices (that may use tech-focused architecture modeling tools) who are considering IRIS BA should ideally identify at outset the role and interplay of IRIS BA in relation to existing tool/data sets and internal delivery processes. All told, IRIS BA meets our functional & non-functional requirements, works well for our intended uses, and peacefully co-exists with other enterprise tools/data sets.

Vorteile:

- Full coverage and close alignment with all Business Architecture [BIZBOK (TM)] subject areas, plus additional areas like Journeys, Requirements, Assets (including IT assets), and Process. - Well thought-out taxonomies for decomposing subject areas and creating mapping relationships between subject areas. - Robust import/export features that can distinguish field updates, from record updates, from full wipe-and-replace table updates. This is useful for scenarios that involve accepting reference data from external sources. Import/export in MSExcel tabular formats is particularly useful. - Flexibility to configure and add: new objects to subject areas, new sections/attributes to new/existing objects, new relationship types, new measures, computed attributes/measures, etc. - Full bi-directional relationship mapping between objects in any subject area, both via diagrams and via edits to the objects themselves. - Active Directory integration: allows for wider collaboration, audit log changes, and user attestation in large enterprises. - Collision detection and re-mapping features are fine-grain and fairly robust. While it's rare that content/modeling collisions occur on specific records, our users are presented with enough information to resolve quickly and directly.

Nachteile:

- IRIS BA software commands a large RAM/CPU footprint when used at scale (tens of thousands of records). Developer-classed workstations with >8GB RAM and >4 cores are recommended for enterprise scale use. Also, elevated (local admin) access is required to install the client software as supplied (albeit a work around was identified), which may pose a challenge for environments with locked-down PCs. - Diagrams, while auto-generated, can only be exported as pictures. Constituents often request diagrams to be exported in MS Visio or MS PowerPoint formats that can be manipulated. That said, content other than diagrams can be readily exported in a variety of formats such as: MS Office products (MS Word, MS Excel), PDF, XML, BPMN, etc. - While it's useful to import and map processes (eg: BPMN formatted Visio diagrams) to other subject areas (like business capabilities), the ability to create/edit process maps directly in IRIS is currently limited. Full feature process mapping requires external tools capable of creating BPMN formatted files that can be imported. - While IRIS BA supports the import of requirements, user stories, etc, via spreadsheet, the ability to import/export/synchronize requirement/story content directly with JIRA and Confluence will be useful in future. - Some diagrams are huge, and the ability to print one diagram across many pages (eg: 6x6 sheets of paper taped together for a wallboard) will be useful for team discussion.

Review IRIS

Kommentare: Very good tool, easy to learn. Support is great and find support

Vorteile:

Easy to generate a lot of diagrams and share with the audience Capture relevant information and allow collaboration Reduce time for documentation

Nachteile:

Bugs, sometimes we lost some information when we were working adding logical components or generating diagrams.

An advanced piece of software for serious business architecture work

Kommentare: I have been using IRIS Business Architect since its earliest inception, and have shared many of its growing pains as it has evolved from a relatively simple diagramming tool into something quite sophisticated: a fully featured modelling application that is built solely to support the business architecture domain. Version 2.2.4 now has the full range of diagrams and mapping relationships to enable a detailed business architecture to be developed from scratch, in accordance with the business architecture domains, guidelines and principles espoused by the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge (BIZBOK Guide). This is an important capability, because it allows a practitioner to apply the practices and reasoning laid out in the BIZBOK Guide. It does not require you to adapt your framework to the whim of the software developer. Stability issues with some of the earlier versions have been ironed out, and this allows me and my global team to collaborate and maintain our business architecture in both real and virtual time. Using the tool in a virtual team environment does, however, come with its own set of challenges in terms of maintaining the same level of software across multiple platforms. We have benefited from excellent service and support from Benchmark Consulting in this regard. Anyone looking to use IRIS' cloud version rather than a localised server should look to secure hands-on support for their implementation to ensure a smooth transition. The feature set is probably more than most Business Architects (at least non-technical ones) will ever need to use, but it seems that IRIS has built in additional features to support extensions to other architecture and project management environments. While it is not necessary to learn each of the advanced features in order to make the tool work and produce a variety of business architectures, the presence of those features does make the user interface somewhat daunting. New users should remember that IRIS is much more of an architectural modelling tool than a diagramming tool, so comparisons with Visio or similar applications are unfair. That being said, there is a steep learning curve required to understand how IRIS works and an early investment in training would be well rewarded.

My Review

Vorteile:

The product is aligned with industry standards (e.g. BiZBOK Guide, Motivation Model, TOGAF) yet is highly configurable to meet a business' unique needs

Nachteile:

- The product's high configurability is a double-edged sword in that there is a steep learning curve needed to correctly customize it - It would be nice to have values of capability measures automatically roll up from the child to parent