Using Capabilities in Enterprise Architecture Management

Capabilities are one of the later “hot topics” in Enterprise Architecture Management. They first appeared towards the beginning of this decade in the form of Microsoft’s Motion effort to develop a business engineering method. In the meantime, also other large consulting companies use capability based methods of all kinds for IT investment planning and also application portfolio management. The method is quite simple and straightforward but still powerful. Opposed to that, for whatever reasons the literature on capability assisted enterprise architecture is still quite scarce. This paper will explain a few of the basic mechanisms behind capability based modeling in pattern form. If you have read it, you will be able to judge, whether capabilities are something that can help make your enterprise architecture efforts more effective. The paper demonstrates how to make straightforward use of capabilities and demonstrates how organizations can profit from capabilities today, even though formal research on capabilities is still ongoing.