building capability models...capabilities provide business-centric view of an organization 2....

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Building Capability Models

The Business Architecture Summit

TCBAF Business Architecture Summit 2019 – Building Capability Models


About Sparx Services North America

Align information technology and systems engineering capabilities

with business strategy using industry best practices and

industry leading tooling to deliver world-class results.

� Industry thought leader in enterprise architecture, business

architecture, systems and software engineering, business analysis,

and agile methods

� Member and contributor to

� UML®, SysML®, SPEM, UPDM™/UAF, BACM at OMG®

� TOGAF®, ArchiMate®, IT4IT™ at The Open Group®

� UML Profile and Metamodel teams at Business Architecture Guild®

� Frameworx at the TM Forum

2



Business Architecture Framework3

Business

Architecture Knowledgebase

� Blueprints provide views into knowledgebase, based on stakeholder concerns

� Scenarios contextualize expected outcomes of business architecture work

� Also inform initial selections of key stakeholders and likely concerns

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Architecture Driven Strategy Delivery4

� Analyze competitive landscape

and current state capabilities

� Define strategy and key initiatives

� Assess viability and impact

� Plan initiative delivery

� Implement and operate solutions

� Monitor outcomes and establish

strategy feedback loop



Deliver Strategic Outcomes – Entrance/Exit Criteria5



Capability Map – Definition

� “Delivers concise, non-redundant, business-centric view of the

business at its most basic level”

� Capability is defined as “a particular ability or capacity that a business may

possess or change to achieve a specific purpose or outcome”

� Capabilities describe “what” an organization does (or should do), not “how” it

does it, or “when” or “where” it is performed

� Capabilities do not stand alone

� Need to be mapped from other content (such as value, strategy, organization,

information, product, etc)

� Provides common enterprise vocabulary

� Mapping to other content allows for localized variability

6

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Capability Mapping – Benefits

� Provide enterprise with common vocabulary

� Enables rapid situation analysis

� Particularly true when issues cross organization boundaries

� Provide foundation for identifying commonality across enterprise

� Identify which business units have same or different capabilities

� Common capabilities provide insight into improvement opportunities

� Enable laser-like business investment focus

� Cut through “noise” of overloaded portfolio

� Baseline for strategic planning, change management, and impact analysis

� Capability-based planning (CBP) emerging as strategic planning best practice

� Foundation for business/IT transformation design and deployment

7

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Capability – Example

� Level 1 capabilities often aligned

with key business object

� Decomposition shown using

hierarchy (or nested boxes)

� Complete set of all capabilities

provide fundamental building

blocks

� Can be arranged in variety of ways

across enterprise

8

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Capability – Relationships 9

UML Profile for BIZBOK® Guide



Capability – Principles

1. Capabilities provide business-centric view of an organization

2. Capabilities are defined in business terms

3. Capabilities are based on business objects

4. Capabilities define what a business does

5. Capabilities are stable

6. Capabilities are defined once for an organization – however, can be

defined incrementally over time

7. Capabilities can be decomposed into finer-grained capabilities

8. There is one capability map for an organization

9. Capabilities map to other views of the business

10. An automated capability is still a business capability – not an IT capability

10

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Capability Mapping – Approaches

� Top-down, enterprise approach

� Create single map for entire business

� Roll up capabilities from all business

units and outsourcing partners

� Takes long-term executive commitment

� Bottom-up, business unit approach

� Create local capability maps for each

business unit

� Challenges scaling up across business

units

� Can provide good seeding for business-

wide map

� Derivative capability map approach

� Create business-wide map, but only top

levels

� Derive business unit level maps from

high-level maps

� Local variability at lower levels

introduces complexities

� Mapping capabilities with

conglomerates

� Likely limit enterprise capability map to

common, shared services

11

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Using Industry Reference Models

� Business Architecture Guild teams have

produced several reference models

� Financial services

� Insurance

� Transportation

� Government

� Common

� Manufacturing

� Healthcare

� Member-based association

� Knowledge management vendors

� Value Reference Model from Value Chain

Group

� Process Classification Framework (PCF) from

American Productivity and Quality Center

(APQC)

� There are numerous business architecture

reference models for vertical industries from

trade organizations

� ACORD for Property & Casualty Insurance

� BIAN for Banking

� Frameworx for Telecommunications

� EMMM for Mining

� IT4IT for Information Technology

� DoDAF for Defense

� FEA for Government

12



Drafting Level 1 Capability Map

1. Establish candidate list of capabilities

� Work with cross-representation of business people

� Borrow from a starter list of capabilities

2. Refine starter list

� Customize terms specific to business

� Rationalize terms across business

3. Validate starter list

� Identify missing terms present in org chart

� Sanity check against industry reference models

4. Draft level 1 capability map

� Bulleted list in document

� Capabilities allocated to tiers on diagram

13

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Capability Stratification Tiers

� Organize capabilities into three sets for planning and analysis purposes

� Provides framework for deciding where to invest

14

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Defining Capabilities

� Define each capability using single sentence that defines what it is but

not why, when, or how it occurs

� Do not reuse the terms used within the capability name as a part of

the definition

� Define parent capabilities before composing children capabilities

� Define all capabilities prior to full rollout of the map

� Refine and test definitions through socialization and validation cycles

15

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Example Capability Definitions

Capability Definition

Capital

Management

The ability to control, develop, review, analyze, and report

on a financial strategy for maintaining sufficient, equitable

levels of assets and liabilities, in order to meet obligations

and maintain sufficient cash flow.

Customer

Management

The ability to control, predict, process, organize, present,

and analyze all information, documents, preferences,

experiences, and history related to an individual or

organization that has, plans to have, or has had an agree in

place with the company.

Agreement

Management

The ability to establish, organize, analyze, administer, and

report on all aspects of a legally-binding contract entered

into between the company and the customer.

16

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Decomposing Capability Map

1. Prioritize decomposition approach

� Ideally select capabilities pertinent to transformation opportunity

� Identify level 2 capabilities for each level 1capability

2. Draft level 2 capability map

� Hierarchical numbered list in document

� Add level 2 capabilities as boxes nested inside level 1 capabilities on diagram

3. Decompose into lower-level capabilities

� Requires deeper business knowledge

� Define level 1 and 2 capabilities first

4. Frame child capabilities in terms of parent capabilities

� Should be more specific, yet related

� Should be multiple children

5. Refine through iteration

17

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Capability Leveling

� Most decomposition does not go

past level 6

� Not required to describe all

sections to same level

� Higher levels more pertinent to

executives

� Lower levels of concern to

implementers

� Decompose to level that supports

requirements for analysis,

planning, and execution

18

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Capability Map – Validation

� Primarily achieved by facilitated working sessions

� Regular, ongoing participation from key stakeholders and subject matter experts

� Involve representative cross-section of enterprise community

� Don’t limit participation to solely those directly involved in capabilities under discussion

� Particularly in top levels of capability map

� Exploit opportunity to leverage diverse community and associated perspectives

� Begin socialization process

� In many cases, greater awareness and understanding gleaned from building the capability map collaboratively

� As opposed to simply delivering a “completed” map to the enterprise

19

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Attributing and Heat Mapping20

� Common implementation

challenges

� Poorly deployed

� Highly fragmented

� Poorly coordinated

� Higher costs

� Redundant

� Inconsistent

� Best to base on

quantitative measures

� As opposed to qualitative

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Value Stream / Capability Cross-Map21

Capability Instance

Stakeholder

Value

Proposition

Value

StreamValue

Stream

Stage



Capability Requirements22

Business Requirements

traced to Capabilities



Capability / Organization Cross-Mapping

� Describe which business units implement which capabilities

� Helps understand scope and impact of transformation initiatives

� Jumpstart discussion about how same capability is implemented in different places

� Leads to understanding if local variability is advantageous or hindrance

23

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0

Capability

Capability

Instance Organization

Application



Capability Interactions24



Capability-Based Investment Analysis

� Use heat mapped capability map to informed investment priorities

� Capability health, risk, cost, importance, stratification level, strategic disposition

� Need to understand in-flight initiatives that touch each capability

� Hard to make investment decisions if you don’t know commitments already made

� May provide opportunity to adjust and re-align

� Also need to understand operational commitments

� Staffing levels, people costs, IT application costs

� Capability-based planning outcomes result in identifying initiatives and

funding levels

� Focus on incrementally delivery of capability improvements based on cross-section

with value streams

25

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Capability-Based Planning (CBP)26

Capability Model

Value Stream

Capability

Name: text

Category: Capabil ity Category

Type: Capabili ty Type

Current Maturity Level: Maturity Level

Current Performance Level: Performance Level

Future Maturity Level: Maturity Level

Future Performance Level: Performance Level

Investment Disposition: Investment Disposition

Ave Health Score: number

Ave Risk Score: number

Total Annual Cost: number

Application

Name: text

Health Score: number

Risk Score: number

Total Annual Cost: money

Investment Disposition: Investment Disposition

Operational Status: Application Operational Status

Proposed Date: date

Development Start Date: date

Operational Start Date: date

Decommissioning Start Date: date

Decomissioning End Date: date

Retired Date: date

«enumerati...

Capability

Category

Core

Supporting

Enabling

«enumeration»

Maturity Lev el

Initial (Level 1)

Managed (Level 2)

Standardized (Level 3)

Predictable (Level 4)

Innovating (Level 5)

«enumerati...

Performance

Lev el

Very Poor

Poor

Acceptable

Good

Very Good

«enumerati...

Inv estment

Disposition

Strategic

Maintain

Retire

«enumerati...

Capability Type

Competitive

Differentiating

Commodity

Strategic Business Architecture

Operational Business Architecture

Application Architecture

Migration Planning

Architecture Domains

View APG CBP

UML Profile

Value Chain

«enumeration»

Application Operational

Status

Proposed

Rejected

Under Development

Developed

Operational

Being Decommissioned

Decommissioned

Process

Name: text

Requirement*

0..1

*

has child capabili ties

1

*

0..1

*

*

supports

*

*

0..1

*

depends upon *

*

supports

*

*

*



Capability Instances and Metrics27

BIZBOK® Guide 8.0



Conclusions

� Establish common vocabulary with business architecture to provide clarity

when discussing, evolving, and formulating business strategy

� Align strategic planning with business architecture to provide end-to-end

transparency across enterprise

� Provide foundation for assessment and trade-off analysis

� Enable impact analysis on key business architecture perspectives (value streams,

capabilities, organizations, etc)

� Rationalize business strategies using business architecture modeling best

practices

� Improve understanding by business architecture community and related

stakeholders

� Enable integration of multi-level strategies to understand alignment and flow-down



29

Q&A

Thanks for your attention

and participation!

Sparx and the names of Sparx’s products are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sparx Systems Pty Ltd.

The Open Group, The Open Group Architecture Framework, TOGAF, IT4IT, and ArchiMate are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Open Group in the

United States and other countries.

BIZBOK, A Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge, Certified Business Architect, CBA, Guild Accredited Training Program, and GATP are

trademarks or registered trademarks of the Business Architecture Guild.

Object Management Group, OMG, the OMG logo, Business Process Modeling Notation, BPMN, the BPMN logo, OMG SysML, UPDM, Unified Modeling

Language, UML, and the UML logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Object Management Group, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

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