Avis clients sur IRIS Business Architect

Must-have for Business Architects

Commentaires : Very happy with experience of this software overall.

Avantages :

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.

Inconvénients :

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.

Commentaires : 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.

Avantages :

- 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.

Inconvénients :

- 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

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

Avantages :

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

Inconvénients :

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

Commentaires : 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

Avantages :

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

Inconvénients :

- 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

Comprehensive BA tool

Avantages :

IRIS is intuitive, easy to use and has a lot of pre built graphs and tables that allow you to quickly built a blue print of your enterprise and understand and improve the way you deliver value to your clients.

Inconvénients :

there are still a few glitches and some shortcuts missing. We are use to the drag and drop and the copy paste shortcuts and they are not always available but the support team is really opened to new ideas and try and improve their tool quickly.

A very promising and wholly unique product.

Commentaires : A brilliant concept, well rendered. This is a must-have, if you are a business architect, analyst or modeler.

Avantages :

This is exactly what the world of business architecture needs -- a tool that is faithful to the Business Architecture Guild "BIZBOK", yet one that is much clearer and more explicit than BIZBOK, and that goes well beyond it. The tool not only reinforces the conceptual structure of BIZBOK, it actually teaches it in ways that are hard to learn through mere reading and repetition. The latest version moves further in the direction of diagram-based authoring, which is far more efficient, less prone to error and (frankly) more fun than merely filling out property forms.

Inconvénients :

The UI and usability, though much improved in the latest version, will hopefully get better and better.

IRIS Business Architect Enterprise Addition - worth the upgrade

Commentaires : This is the first tool that I have come across that specifically and effectively supports solely the discipline of Business Architecture. I found two aspects of the tool to be notably quite beneficial from a time savings perspective. First, the user interface for building various mappings is intuitive, allowing for rapid design. Second, the collaboration functionality enables multiple BAs to work together on the same model. The only negative is that the user documentation is good, not great. However, with the intuitive nature of the tool, we have worked through any unknowns rapidly.

We are active participants with the Business Architecture Guild which produces the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge. IRIS Business Architect is aligned with the practices and views described with the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge guide. This is also helpful in rapid adoption of what is published from the tool.

Overall, highly recommend IRIS Business Architect.

Very flexible product in the right hands. Built for modeling across multiple disciplines.

Commentaires : Only product that currently supports Business Architecture metamodeling (value streams and capabilities) to connect with other metamodels (process, measure, service, system) to model the enterprise and guide end-2-end transformation using a model-driven approach.

Sabine's review

Commentaires : The software is great however, there is a lot to understand when completing the setup. Thanks for the quick and excellent support.