Construction Industry Reference Architecture
Your guide to building business capability maps, value streams, and strategy maps in both vertical and horizontal construction industries.
Your organization may be facing:
- A lack of understanding of the businesses landscape and how IT can support the delivery of successful projects.
- A lack of a business- and AI-aligned view of mission, strategy, goals, objectives, processes, projects, and measures of success.
- The presence of silos that miss the big picture and don’t understand the need for a synergistic approach for successful outcomes.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Using an industry-specific reference architecture is central, and has many benefits, to organizational priorities. It is critical for understanding, modeling, and communicating the operating environment and the direction of the organization and, more significantly, for enabling measurable top-line organizational outcomes and unlocking direct value.
Impact and Result
- Demonstrate the value of IT’s role in supporting your construction business capabilities while highlighting the importance of proper alignment between organizational and IT strategies.
- Apply Level 2 business reference architecture techniques such as strategy maps, value streams, and capability maps to design usable and accurate blueprints of your construction business.
- Assess your initiatives and priorities to determine if you are investing in the right capabilities. Conduct capability assessments to identify opportunities and prioritize projects.
Construction Industry Reference Architecture Guide
Your guide to building business capability maps, value streams, and strategy maps in both vertical and horizontal construction industries.
Analyst perspective
In the age of disruption, IT must end misalignment and enable value realization.
An industry business reference architecture helps accelerate your strategy design process and enhances your firm's ability to align people, process, and technology with key business priorities.
A business reference architecture is a powerful tool to enable communication with business stakeholders and will provide the context in which to align strategically for a scalable, profitable future.
Michael Adams
Research Analyst, Construction
Info-Tech Research Group
Executive summary
Your Challenge
You need to improve your organization's understanding of business capabilities and how IT can support the delivery of essential services.
You work for an organization that wants to sharpen its alignment and focus on organizational outcomes and value by using automation and cost-effective methods that produce the most reliable and highest quality outcomes.
Before executing any strategic initiatives, use this blueprint to understand how the organization creates value.
Common Obstacles
You don't have a clear path for capturing the right information, engaging the right people, linking with the needs of the business, and aligning with IT.
The business and IT often speak in their own languages without a holistic and integrated view of mission, strategy, goals, objectives, business processes, projects, and measures of success.
The business and IT organizations often focus their attention within silos and miss the big-picture need for a synergistic approach for successful outcomes.
Info-Tech's Approach
Build your organization's capability map by defining the organization's value stream and validating the construction industry reference architecture.
Use business capabilities to define strategic focus by defining the organization's key capabilities and developing a prioritized strategy map.
Assess key capabilities for planning priorities through a review of business processes, information, application, and technology support of key capabilities.
Adopt capability-based strategy planning by ongoing identification and road mapping of capability gaps.
Info-Tech Insight
Using an industry-specific reference architecture is central, and has many benefits, to organizational priorities. It is critical for understanding, modeling, and communicating the operating environment and the direction of the organization and, more significantly, for enabling measurable top-line organizational outcomes and unlocking direct value.
Industry overview: Construction
Construction companies want to innovate and optimize operations. Business landscapes continue to evolve, improving operations in pre-construction, construction, and project closeout.
Complexity is driving the need for innovation. Construction companies are adopting new technologies. As projects become more complex and consumer demand shifts, construction firms are slowly innovating.
New technologies are improving safety and decreasing errors. New real-time insights are driving project success.
Technology advancements are becoming more readily available. This includes autonomous machinery and building information modeling (BIM).
Businesses need a comprehensive business architecture to realize financial benefits and support collaboration across teams.
Figure above: Value Stream Cycle for Construction Companies
Business value realization
Business value defines the success criteria of an organization as manifested through organizational goals and outcomes, and it is interpreted from four perspectives:
Profit generation: The revenue generated from a business capability with a product that is enabled with modern technologies.
Cost reduction: The cost reduction when performing business capabilities with a product that is enabled with modern technologies.
Service enablement: The productivity and efficiency gains of internal business operations from products and capabilities enhanced with modern technologies.
Customer and market reach: The improved reach and insights of the business in existing or new markets.
Business Value Matrix
Value, goals, and outcomes cannot be achieved without business capabilities
Break down your business goals into strategic and achievable initiatives focused on specific value streams and business capabilities.
Construction industry business capability map
Business capability map defined
In business architecture, the primary view of an organization is known as a business capability map.
A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation, rather than how. Business capabilities:
- Represent stable business functions.
- Are unique and independent of each other.
- Typically will have a defined business outcome.
A business capability map provides details that help the business architecture practitioner direct attention to a specific area of the business for further assessment.
Glossary of key concepts
A business reference architecture consists of a set of models to provide clarity and actionable insight and value. Typical techniques and terms used in developing these models are:
Term/Concept |
Definition |
|---|---|
Industry Value Chain |
A high-level analysis of how the industry creates value for the consumer as an overall end-to-end process. |
Business Capability Map |
The primary visual representation of the organization's key capabilities. This model forms the basis of strategic planning discussions. |
Industry Value Streams |
The specific set of activities an industry player undertakes to create and capture value for and from the end consumer. |
Strategic Objectives |
A set of standard strategic objectives that most industry players will feature in their corporate plans. |
Industry Strategy Map |
A visualization of the alignment between the organization's strategic direction and its key capabilities. |
Capability Assessments |
Based on people, process, information, and technology, a heatmapping effort that analyzes the strength of each key capability. |
Capability |
An ability that an organization, person, or system possesses. Capabilities are typically expressed in general and high-level terms and typically require a combination of organization, people, processes, and technology to achieve. |
Source: The Open Group, 2009
Compile and communicate your reference architecture work
The Construction Industry Reference Architecture Template is a place for you to collect all of the activity outputs and outcomes you've completed for use in next steps.
Download the Construction Industry Reference Architecture Template
Info-Tech's methodology for reference architecture
Build Your Organization's Capability Map |
Use Business Capabilities to Define Strategic Focus |
Assess Key Capabilities for Planning Priorities |
Adopt Capability-Based Strategy Planning |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
Phase Steps |
1.1 Define the Organization's Value Stream 1.2 Develop a Business Capability Map |
2.1 Define the Organization's Key Capabilities 2.2 Develop a Strategy Map |
3.1 Review Business Processes 3.2 Assess Information 3.3 Identify Technology Opportunities |
4.1 Consolidate and Prioritize Capability Gaps |
Phase Outcomes |
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Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs
DIY Toolkit
"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."
Guided Implementation
"Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."
Workshop
"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."
Executive & Technical Counseling
"Our team and processes are maturing; however, to expedite the journey we'll need a seasoned practitioner to coach and validate approaches, deliverables, and opportunities."
Consulting
"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."
Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all five options
Guided Implementation
What does a typical Guided Implementation (GI) on this topic look like?
A GI is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is six to nine calls over the course of one to four months.
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 4-phase advisory process. You'll receive 9 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Build your organization’s capability map
- Call 1: Introduce Info-Tech’s industry reference architecture methodology.
Guided Implementation 2: Use business capabilities to define strategic focus
- Call 1: Define and create value streams.
- Call 2: Model Level 1 business capability maps.
- Call 3: Map value streams to business capabilities.
- Call 4: Model Level 2 business capability maps.
Guided Implementation 3: Assess key capabilities for planning priorities
- Call 1: Create a strategy map.
- Call 2: Introduce Info-Tech's capability assessment framework.
Guided Implementation 4: Adopt capability-based strategy planning
- Call 1: Review capability assessment maps.
- Call 2: Discuss and review prioritization of key capability gaps and plan next steps.
Contributors
- Nicole Laurence, CIO, Graniterock
