Build Business First Using B-A-P-O
Are you building an organization to create the right product or the right product that the current organization can build?
There is a turning point where every leader can feel like they go from building a product or a business to building a team or an organization. This can feel like progress, but the more established an organization becomes, the more you must keep your organization flexible.
In High Output Management, Andy Grove uses an example of a breakfast factory where customers can have eggs, toast, and coffee. Imagine the breakfast factory has built an entire organization around optimizing the fastest/cheapest/highest quality ways of boiling eggs, making toast, and pouring coffee. Now imagine that the market shifts and customers now want breakfast burritos. Do you rewire the organization to make breakfast burritos by training new chefs (and getting new ingredients and equipment) or do you attempt to wrap the toast around the eggs to make something burrito shaped?
Hopefully you all know the right answer. That is where BAPO comes in.
What is BAPO?
BAPO stands for Business → Architecture → Process → Organization.
Jan Bosch introduced this concept in his paper called Software Product Family Evaluation and later expanded on it with his essay titled Structure Eats Strategy, arguing that high-performing companies must start with business strategy, not start with the existing org chart and work backward.
How to Apply BAPO
The right time to apply BAPO is whenever there is a major strategy shift or product iteration. When that happens
Business: What is the best possible product or service we can provide for our business?
Architecture: What technology, tools, or infrastructure is required to build that product or service?
Process: What behaviors, practices, and ways of working are required to use the architecture to build the product or service?
Organization: What skills, roles, individuals, and teams are needed to execute the process and use the architecture to build that product or service?
In practice there are often existing people, processes, and architecture that can be salvaged or changed to support the new strategy. You may also need to hire people to own the decisions on the process or architecture. That is perfectly fine.
The point of BAPO is to remain flexible and ensure that the organization, processes, and architecture all serve the business strategy.
Watch Out for OPAB
It is incredibly difficult to build a team, establish processes, and set up core architecture. However, none of that matters if you are building the wrong thing. Whenever you go through a business strategy shift the change should reverberate through every layer of BAPO. While it may be painful to drive this sort of transformation, it will be worth it if it gives your team a better chance of building that successful new product or service.
Final Thoughts
Companies are built around solving problems for customers. BAPO is a reminder to not fall into the easy path of maintaining existing systems when the problems or the solutions change.
BAPO is a powerful idea that can be a strong starting point of leadership discussions. Use it periodically to review how the architecture, process, and organization are all serving your business goals. Whenever possible, build for flexibility and don’t be afraid to constantly iterate and update these areas as you grow.