Carlson BCMI
Hierarchical Structure
Architecture principles that provide enterprise design reuse and scale, and separate what the business needs from how it is met.
The Discipline · Volume I
Principles
The rules that make a capability model impossible to fake, and the reason it holds still while everything around it changes.
The Object
What persists is what the enterprise is able to do.
Organizations are redrawn. Processes are resequenced. Applications are replaced. The ability the enterprise had before the change is still there after it. A capability is the governed statement of that ability, and every principle in this volume exists to keep the statement precise enough to reason over.
Hierarchical Structure
Four levels, from value chain to functional ability.
A normalized hierarchy keeps every ability in one place. The upper levels align the enterprise; the lower levels separate what the business needs from how that need is functionally met.
L1
Value Chain
Noun · VerbAnchors to the industry value chain. Product Management. Claims Management.
L2
Enterprise Capability
Verb · NounApplies across every line of business. Manage Renewals.
L3
Business Capability
Ability to [verb] [object]What the business needs. Ability to price a product.
L4
Functional Capability
Ability to [verb] [object]How that need is functionally met. Ability to calculate a credit score.
Semantic Ruleset
One grammar, governed.
Every business and functional capability is written the same way, so any two statements in the enterprise can be compared, joined, and scored.
Ability to [verb] [object]
Depersonalized
The actor is omitted. The ability belongs to the enterprise, not to the role that happens to perform it today.
One verb
One statement, one action. A statement carrying several verbs is several abilities that cannot be scored or attributed.
Verbs fit the level
Abstract verbs such as manage and administer belong at the upper levels. Concrete verbs such as calculate, approve, and transmit belong beneath them.
Non-redundant
One distinct, irreducible business need per statement, written once and referenced wherever it occurs.
Valid across the enterprise
Each ability holds across roles, products, geographies, and channels. If it holds in only one context, it is a requirement.
Governed vocabulary
Verbs are drawn from a governed reference and applied the same way everywhere, which is what makes the model measurable.
Written as ability
Ability to calculate a premium
Ability to transmit a payment
Not a capability
Underwriter calculates a premium
Tied to a role.Ability to auto-default home address on web form
Tied to a solution.Relational Modeling
Relational by discipline.
The relational model brought set theory to data: one fact in one place, selected by predicate. The same discipline, applied one layer up, treats business capabilities as a normalized set and attributes each one across strategy, operations, and technology.
Which capabilities are performed by an underwriter, on workers' compensation, and carry revenue growth?
The answer is any region of the set, not only the center, and the question never had to be anticipated when the model was written.
Three Disciplines
The art and the science.
II
Relational Modeling
Modeling principles, grounded in relational theory and predicate logic, that carry investment decisions from strategy through execution.
III
Semantic Rulesets
Language rules that give the enterprise a shared, measurable definition of itself, level by level and verb by verb.
Relational by discipline. Beyond relational by design.