The Process Architecture is the hierarchal design of the processes. As the business undergoes changes and processes become more complex, a strong process architecture ensures that processes remain in their optimal state. Organizational strategy, structure, process ownership, and program portfolio are some of the key considerations that go into defining the architecture.

In Stages, since each of the process resides in its own workspace, process architecture is represented by hierarchy of the workspaces. Before been integrated into the next process in the hierarchy, it is recommended that each process should be baselined (versioned) and only the valid version of the process should be integrated.

Above is an example of process architecture. Since common elements like phases & milestones, common roles (e.g. stakeholders) are defined at corporate level, they have been defined in workspace called ‘Common Elements’. This workspace is then integrated into each Process Area workspace.

Furthermore, all the process areas are integrated into a single Standard Process called ‘Software Engineering’ workspace which contains all their process elements (workflows, activities, roles, phases & milestones, work products, and guidance).

In the final layer, specific programs have been instantiated from the ‘Software Engineering’ workspace. This is done by first integrating ‘Software Engineering’ workspace into the Program workspaces and later tailoring each of the Program.

Below we see how the Process Areas defined in above example would show as workspaces in Stages.

In order to integrate a process into next level, use the Add module option on Process start page. In our example, once the Software Engineering workspace was created, all the process areas are added at one go by using the Add module option. The recommended practice is to select the valid version of processes to be added.

For any existing workspace, more modules can be added by navigating to Management>Process Modules and clicking or tapping on Add Module.

Once a valid version of a process has been released, the modules where it is integrated need to be manually updated to consume the valid version.

Navigate Management>Process Modules of the integrated workspace and select Update. Once the valid version is updated, the circular orange icon changes to green with a ‘V’ in it.

A module can also be removed from an integrated process by selecting Remove option. This will remove inherited process elements of the removed module from the integrated process workspace.