Chapter 5: The Portfolio of Change
The Student Experience Transformation was not one project. It was five initiatives: student data integration, an advising platform, an employer partnership platform, a proactive student support system, and a student experience portal. A financial comparison of standalone business cases ranked data integration last: no direct student benefit, indirect returns, substantial cost. But the architecture revealed something the business case could not show. The advising platform delivered relationship-based advising only if the advisor could see a consolidated student profile , which required data integration. The proactive support system required academic performance data across systems, which required data integration. Data integration was not the weakest business case in the portfolio. It was the prerequisite for everything else. This chapter is about the business architect's role at the portfolio table: showing the dependencies the business case cannot see and challenging sequencing by political convenience with sequencing by capability dependency.
What You'll Be Able To Do
By the end of this chapter, you'll be able to:
- Map the structural dependencies between a set of change initiatives, revealing the sequencing the business case alone cannot show.
- Challenge default portfolio sequencing with architecture evidence, and make the case for the initiative that is invisible, unglamorous, and foundational to everything else.
- Build a business case from architecture evidence that connects what the organization gains to what it risks by waiting.
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