I’ve just been reading a couple of articles on this topic in the online version of Architecture and Governance Magazine. (registration required to read full article text).
In Business Capability Modeling: Theory & Practice, author Leonard Greski gives a good overview of the process steps:
Business capabilities can be modeled using a variety of simple techniques, using low-cost tools. There are four steps to create a capability model:
- Develop the capability hierarchy.
- Identify key relationships between capabilities and other planning elements.
- Develop demand models for the capabilities.
- Develop financial models for the capabilities.
The “how” of the approach seems to be similar to most modelling approaches – capture a hierarchical decomposition of objects and identify cross-relationships using matrices.
Of particular interest is the “what” – this approach is focused very much on identifying the characteristics of a business that create value (for customers or shareholders), and identifying the resources, investments and cashflows that underpin them. I can see this approach would be very useful in situations such as programme blueprint creation – identifying the desired future shape of the organisation.
In the second article Business Capability Modelling: Building the Hierarchy Leonard dives more deeeply into the “How” of the first two steps. I look forward to reading the next article, which presumably will look at steps 3 and 4.
(NB I’ve looked for a blog by Leonard, but can’t find one, hence linking to his LinkedIn profile.)
