chapter four
4 Business architecture for agentic systems
This chapter covers
- Redesigning value streams around explicit decision surfaces and bounded agentic judgment
- Classifying where autonomous decision-making authority should be exercised, deferred, or reserved for humans
- Applying business architecture patterns, including Decision Surfaces, Goal-Oriented Journeys, and Agent-as-a-Capability
- Designing Human Oversight with HITL, HOTL, Escalation Triggers, and Context Handover
- Recognizing business architecture antipatterns such as invisible autonomy and escalation deadlock
- Moving from pilot experiments to production-scale autonomy through disciplined migration and capability integration
Business architecture is the first applied layer of the Agentic Enterprise Framework. It is where autonomy moves from theory into operating reality: value streams expose where judgment occurs, decision surfaces define where authority is exercised, and capability models anchor accountability in the business. In this chapter, the framework’s principle of bounded autonomy becomes a concrete business architecture discipline: map the decision surface, assign authority, define escalation, and anchor accountability.