Business Agility Manifesto questionnaire
The purpose of this questionnaire is to provide initial insights into an organization’s need and readiness to
become more inherently agile. It can be applied to a multi-company or organizational value chain, anentire business entity, or a group within. Organizations are, by nature, complex and this diagnostic cannot
capture peculiarities of an individual business nor can it substitute for a comprehensive assessment ofwhat you should do and when you should do it. Please use it to gain awareness of gaps your organizationneeds to close in order to tackle never-ending change with more ease and confidence.

Terms used in the questionnaire•Value Chain
Definition: the business knowledge and work needed to deliver products or services to a market
organized according to their natural dependencies
Description: A value chain comprises all the work and business knowledge required to conceive,plan, market, sell, deliver, optimize and manage a set of products and services to satisfy
customers. A value chain encompasses all participating parties whether inside or outside theorganization. All products or services delivered to the same market are the result of a single
value chain.

•Business Knowledge
Definition: the total set of business concepts, their organizing connections, and the businessrules upon which the existence of the business depends
Description: Business knowledge can answer, for example, which processes make which
decisions with which business rules, which roles are responsible for which activities, and whatbusiness terminology should be used to refer to what things in the business.

•

Business Integrity
Definition: soundness of business results, resulting in part from uncompromising adherence tobusiness rules, including contractual obligations and commitments
Description: An important manifestation of business Integrity is consistency in business results
whenever equivalent business circumstances are encountered.

•Business Capability
Definition: a distinctive combination of business assets, including business knowledge, that canbe used to accomplish an objective, perform one or more tasks, or achieve an end
Description: Business Capability is what the business must be able to do or to have to execute its
business strategy.

The Business Agility Manifesto, for more information visit: https://busagilitymanifesto.org/© Business Rule Solutions, LLC. 2017. © John A. Zachman, Zachman International. 2017. © Process Renewal Consulting Group (2015), Inc. 2017.

1Questionnaire
Section 1 - Perpetual Change

1a.
1b.

No

I don’t
know

YesNo

I don’tknow

Does your leadership recognise the inevitability of neverending fast-paced change?
Do you have a continuous innovation program or initiative inplace?

1c.

Do you expect that the pace of innovation will require you tohave a more complete understanding of how your businessworks?

1d.

Have you had any existing products or services unintentionallydisrupted during the implementation of a business change?

1e.

Could your current operations and performance be put at risk
during business change?

1f.

Yes

Is business change management a general management
responsibility?

Section 2 - Business Strategy and Value Creation

2a.

Do all your investments in change deliver strategic businessvalue?

2b.

Do you have sufficient knowledge of your business capabilities
to helpfully improve your business strategy and plans forchange?

2c.

Do you have to reinvent, re-specify and redesign businesscapabilities from scratch on any change initiative?

2d.

Do you know what your business policies and business rules
are and can you change them quickly and easily?

2e.

Has your business implemented software changes but seen
minimal business value?

The Business Agility Manifesto, for more information visit: https://busagilitymanifesto.org/© Business Rule Solutions, LLC. 2017. © John A. Zachman, Zachman International. 2017. © Process Renewal Consulting Group (2015), Inc. 2017.

2

Section 3 - Business Integrity

3a.

Have you experienced inconsistent business results negatively
impacting external stakeholders (i.e. customers, regulators)?

3b.

Do your customers and partners get consistent business results
regardless of business channel?

3c.

Can you demonstrate compliance anywhere, anytime, in realtime?

3d.

Are your core business processes and business results
impacted when you lose key staff?

3e.

Are your core business processes and business results
impacted when you change technology?

Yes

NoI don’tknowYes

No

I don’tknow

Section 4 - Business Solution Agility

4a.

Have you experienced any unintended consequences as aresult of a significant change?

4b.

Have you experienced significant rework/delays on a majorchange initiative?

4c.

Can you readily determine what was done in the past and what
is in place when you consider business changes?

4d.

4e.

Are you able to determine the impact of one aspect of a change
on other inter-dependent ones to predict and mitigate
unintended consequences (e.g. business rule change impact on
software viability)?
Have you experienced unplanned redesign of processes,
databases and systems due to lack of a common understandingor consistent use of business terminology?

4f.

Have you had to increase expenditures or create manual workarounds to maintain operations, or prevent failure?

4g.

Are you constrained in rolling out new or changed policies,rules, or other capabilities by your software release cycle?

The Business Agility Manifesto, for more information visit: https://busagilitymanifesto.org/© Business Rule Solutions, LLC. 2017. © John A. Zachman, Zachman International. 2017. © Process Renewal Consulting Group (2015), Inc. 2017.

3

Section 5 - Organization AgilityYes

No

I don’tknow

Yes

NoI don’tknow

The Business Agility Manifesto, for more information visit: https://busagilitymanifesto.org/

45a.

Is organisational structure cross functionally aligned to achieve
the business strategy?

5b.

Can the organization’s reporting relationships be adjusted
without impacting the ability to get the right work done?

5c.

Is the incentive structure of managers and staff aligned withthe measurements of business results?

5d.

Do you have the right behaviours across the organization toconsistently support perpetual change?

5e.

Does your company have a collaborative environment for
decision making and problem solving at all levels?

5f.

Does your company exhibit an honest and free flow ofinformation and ideas involving all staff?

Section 6 - Value Chain Perspective

6a.

Do you have an established value chain model that can be used
to design, change, manage, operate, and analyze the entire
value chain, not just parts of it?

6b.

Does your value chain model define all work performed bystakeholders including external service providers and partners?

6c.

Do you manage your customer value chains from end-to-end
regardless of your organisational structure?

6d.

Are performance indicators for your partner/service contractsaligned with the business results that customers value?

6e.

Do you share and reuse your business knowledge across anentire value chain regardless of organisational siloes?

© Business Rule Solutions, LLC. 2017. © John A. Zachman, Zachman International. 2017. © Process Renewal Consulting Group (2015), Inc. 2017.

Yes

NoI don’t
know

Yes

NoI don’tknow

Yes

NoI don’tknow

The Business Agility Manifesto, for more information visit: https://busagilitymanifesto.org/

56f.

Do you share the same business vocabulary across an entire
value chain regardless of organisational siloes?

6g.

Do you apply the same business rules across an entire valuechain regardless of organisational siloes?

Section 7 - Business Knowledge and its Management

7a.

Does your organisation value business knowledge as much assoftware development knowledge?

7b.

Can you quickly and reliably trace changes in any elements,
including business strategy, business policy, and business rules?

7c.

Does your organisation have sufficient, documented, andavailable business knowledge to establish and sustain optimalbusiness capabilities?

7d.

Can you easily access and trust the business knowledge acrossthe value chain?

7e.

Do your automated processes and manual processes share anduse common business vocabulary and business rules?

7f.

Is business knowledge stored and available in the language ofthe business (not just for technical purposes)?

7g.

Do you share core business knowledge with workers at all levels
in a systematic way?

Section 8 - Business Knowledge-Base / Single source of business truth

8a.

Do your change initiatives consistently capture resultant
business knowledge in a knowledge-base for later reuse?

8b.

Is your business knowledge-base used for dynamically
predicting and mitigating the impacts of change on value
chains?

© Business Rule Solutions, LLC. 2017. © John A. Zachman, Zachman International. 2017. © Process Renewal Consulting Group (2015), Inc. 2017.

No

I don’tknow

The Business Agility Manifesto, for more information visit: https://busagilitymanifesto.org/

6Yes
8c.

Is your business knowledge-base automated for the entire value
chain?

8d.

Can the business knowledge-base be trusted to provide a single
source of truth for business audiences?

8e.

Is your knowledge-base structured according to unique andseparate subject-matter building blocks?

8f.

Is your knowledge-base agnostic to organisational boundaries?

© Business Rule Solutions, LLC. 2017. © John A. Zachman, Zachman International. 2017. © Process Renewal Consulting Group (2015), Inc. 2017.