True business alignment begins with a shared understanding of what the business is trying to achieve and how it intends to get there. In this forum, Linda Finley will explore how clearly defining business intent—articulating the Ends and the Means—creates alignment across strategy, operations, and solutions. Centered on the role of business models, this session offers both a practical refresher and new perspectives on using proven approaches to connect purpose, value creation, and architecture.

To achieve business alignment, we must first:

• Understand the factors that motivate the business
• Extract and drive additional detail into elements of the business plan
• Clearly articulate the Ends – things that the business wishes to achieve
• Clearly articulate the Means – things that the business will employ to achieve those Ends

In this way, the business model becomes the foundation for connecting organizations, operations, engagement, solutions, indeed the entire gray matter and nervous system of the enterprise to the business intent. The starting point for any good discussion of business models is shared understanding of what a business model actually is.

The business model:

• Describes how an organization (or project, or person(!)) creates, delivers and captures value.
• Describes how a company earns its money (or how it wants to earn its money) on a product or service
• Describes “the real world” in a simplified way
• Captures a simplified description of how a company drives its business.
• Enables alignment of resources and activities to purpose.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro at thinking and doing business modeling or could use a refresher, come and play–let’s share some proven and new ideas for use and innovation on something that we are certain works and is a foundational building block to understanding the architecture of your business.