A crucial aspect of enterprise architecture is the ability to communicate your ideas to stakeholders effectively, and making architectural diagrams more engaging is a vital skill in this process. We all know that striking the right tone with stakeholders can be challenging, especially since not everyone speaks fluent ArchiMate. Exploring alternative visualizations can be extremely helpful in enhancing these conversations. Recently, we’ve introduced new capabilities in Bizzdesign Horizzon to simplify the creation of custom diagrams and fresh viewpoints and icons to make your diagrams more visually appealing and accessible.
One: Metro Map showing a flow of information
One of the new visualizations we’ve added is a Metro Map. As the name suggests, we have taken inspiration from the London Underground Metro Maps to show a sequence or a flow of information. In the example below we show a flow of information between actors. Every metro line refers to an information object.
ALSO READ: How to communicate ArchiMate to a business audience
Two: Using alternative colors or icons
Another way of making architectural diagrams more appealing is by using alternative colors or icons. To make this easier we have included AWS-icons to our symbol library. These can be used to, for instance, create a deployment architecture diagram or cloud architecture diagram. The AWS-icons can be used from the “Change graphical shape” menu or can be used in our Metamodeler to create a custom viewpoint. By creating a custom viewpoint you make it easier to create diagrams with a consistent look and feel. Another advantage is that they can be really tailored towards a specific target audience, while at the same time still adhere to the ArchiMate standard.
Besides the icons we provide out-of-the-box it also possible to use/ create your own icons. In the below example we have used Font Awsome icons to create a high-level Infrastructure architecture.
Making an effort to create this kind of diagrams can make a real difference in accepting your architectural diagrams. Still, if you want to start smaller, we have seen examples where our customers drastically improved the adoption rate of architectural diagrams by simply ‘painting’ the diagram in their corporate colors. Standardization of corporate colors can also easily be achieved by defining custom viewpoints in Metamodeler.
If you need further information on how to explain ArchiMate to a business audience, please contact us. For a wealth of expert info on Enterprise Architecture, visit our wiki pages.
About the author:
Product Manager at Bizzdesign
Mark is deeply involved in Bizzdesign’s product vision, strategy, roadmap, and product development, contributing significantly to the innovation portfolio. He is well-known for his expertise in enterprise architecture and is currently playing a pivotal role in driving Bizzdesign’s AI advancements within the Horizzon platform.
