The question an architecture has to answer is “why are we building this, and how do we know it worked?” Traceability is the answer: an unbroken thread from a strategic objective down to the test that validates the delivered object. Click any node — its upstream ancestry (what it serves) and downstream descendants (what it produces) light up across all six layers.
An initiative with no line back to a strategic objective is scope with no sponsor; an objective with no line down to a deliverable and a test is a slogan. Maintaining this thread is how a Business Architect keeps a change portfolio honest — it makes orphaned work and unfunded strategy visible on sight, and it turns “is this done?” into a concrete question with a test attached. It is the same discipline as an SAP RICEFW register tied to functional specs, lifted to the enterprise level and cross-mapped to the capability map and value streams.