Capability

What we can do by orchestrating our people and assets.

Description

Enterprises strive to achieve their purpose by creating products that feature in people's experiences. To do so, they must design and realise their capabilities by orchestrating meaningful combinations of people and assets. Each capability produces well-defined outputs for internal or external business use and contributes directly or indirectly to product creation.

Capabilities guide the modularisation of our enterprise by defining boundaries around what "belongs together" and what is distinct from other capabilities. By deriving the realising activities and structures (such as the required organisation and IT architecture), a well-designed capability model leads to organisations that are adaptive to change. Capabilities can be decomposed into sub-capabilities (usually levels 1-3) to create a hierarchy. Each capability must have a clearly assigned business owner to ensure its strategic development and the effective creation of intended outputs.

Capability Map

File:Capability example.png

Examples

A national government develops the capability to warn citizens about potential environmental dangers.
A railway service operates its own power plants and power lines to distribute energy across their network.
A technology company sets up a government relations capability to affect upcoming regulation.
A design studio excels in its digital product design practice, building upon research and prototyping capabilities.

Use

Clarify what needs to be done and the assets your people need to do that.
Focus your resources on the right outputs to contribute to, to achieve intended outcomes.
Define clear ownerships for governance structures based on capability boundaries.
Design your operations for efficiency and business adaptivity.
Create a common terminology.

Base element

Capability is an Outcome

Types

Customer-facing capabilities
Operational capabilities
Change capabilities
Support capabilities

Contents