Enterprisology

Capabilities provide ways of looking at an organizational entity, (e.g., organizational area such as business area) from the perspective of what the organizational entity is able to do or provide in the way of useful affordances toward the accomplishment of desired results (e.g., business results for a business entity). A result is something valued by the organizational entity or one of its stakeholders, and elicits work or other investment in order that such a result can be realized. A capability represents an ability of the organizational entity to provide or produce some result. A capability net results from analyzing dependencies among various capabilities that have been identified.

Capabilities are distinguished from processes, in that processes rely on a time-ordered sequence for definition, whereas capabilities have no explicit time sequence and instead facilitate achievement of a result.

The preceding language is a simplified version of the description to be found in United States Patent  7580913 (Complete patent can be found at this URL: http://bit.ly/bRQI2Z )

Elements:

• Capability definition
• Result
• Roleplayer
• Value of result to roleplayer
• Costs to develop, maintain, and provide as needed