A functioning organism is comprised of systems. In a biological organism these include: respiration, nutrition, circulation, sensory, locomotive, nervous, reproduction, waste elimination, skeletal and so on. In a social entity they include collaboration, competition, regulation, suppression, promotion, etc. In a business they include: financial (capital, revenue, expenses, investment, cash flow), product and service delivery, customer management, skills and capabilities, compliance and risk management, sensing and planning, An enterprise thrives when the systems are working properly and in balance. Like an organism or society, it will become ill if any system is not working properly, or if they are out of balance.

As business architects it is useful to do a “health check” which should include the following aspects: financial, human resources, geographic coverage, products and services, shareholding, partnerships, channels, technology, legal, information, risk management, agility, strategy, architecture. These dimensions can be determined in facilitated workshops (or distributed information gathering from stakeholders) using templates and maturity models. They can be usefully plotted to show a current, competitor benchmark and target for a given time horizon. Big gaps between target or benchmark and current health are obvious candidates for more intensive work.