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Software Architecture Guide

Capability Map Use Cases

Explanation

Section titled “Explanation”

A capability map lists what a business does to reach its goals. The articles Business Capability Map and Business Capability cover the basics. This article covers how teams use the map.

Strategic planning. Business capabilities are presented as the foundation for strategic planning. The map helps a business focus, invest in the right areas, and allocate resources better.

Gap analysis. Teams overlay today’s capabilities on the future state. This includes capabilities that must become more mature. It also includes capabilities the business lacks entirely but will need.

Heat maps. A heat map colors the capabilities to show how they perform. It helps teams spot high- and low-performing areas and decide where to focus resources. See Capability Heat Map. Comparing several views shows capabilities that are critical to a goal and have the largest gaps to close. Capabilities can also be plotted by proficiency against importance. That view shows risk and opportunity.

Application rationalization. Teams map applications to capabilities. Redundancies then become easier to analyze, and costs can fall.

Changing priorities. A capability map makes it easier to reprioritize projects when strategic objectives change. This helps most in agile settings.

Using the map. The benefit comes from use. Examples are assessing projects, and aligning discussions and performance assessment by capability.

Example

Section titled “Example”

A retailer maps its capabilities. A heat map shows that “Order Fulfillment” is very important but weak. The team also maps its applications and finds three tools supporting “Customer Support”. It funds the fulfillment work first. It then reviews whether two of the support tools can be retired.

Trade-offs

Section titled “Trade-offs”

Granularity is the main pitfall. A map that stops at level 1 is effectively only a value chain. It needs deeper decomposition to be usable. Too much depth hurts too. Balanced decomposition keeps the model usable, maintainable, and decision-oriented. A capability describes what the enterprise does, not who does it or how. The right level of detail depends on analytical value. A map that nobody uses brings no benefit.

Checks

Section titled “Checks”
  • The capability map is decomposed below level 1 so it is usable for decisions.
  • Gap analysis compares current and future capabilities, including missing ones.
  • Applications are mapped to capabilities to find redundancies.
  • Capabilities describe what the enterprise does, not who or how.
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Sources

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