parent relations of a capability

In the context of business capabilities, a parent relationship isn't as common or universally defined as in other contexts. However, there are two possible interpretations:

1. Capability Breakdown (Uncommon):

• This interpretation suggests a hierarchical relationship between business capabilities, where a parent capability represents a broader function and child capabilities represent more specific sub-functions that contribute to the parent's overall objective.

  • For example:

    • Parent Capability: Customer Management

    • Child Capabilities:

      • Customer Onboarding

      • Customer Service

      • Customer Retention

  • In this scenario, the "Customer Management" capability encompasses all activities related to interacting with customers, while the child capabilities represent specific stages or aspects of that interaction.

It's important to note that this approach to parent-child relationships for business capabilities isn't widely used. Organizations often prefer to focus on capabilities as independent building blocks, avoiding complex hierarchies.

2. Capability Dependencies (More Common):

• A more common way to understand relationships between business capabilities is through dependencies. This acknowledges that some capabilities might rely on others to function effectively.

  • For instance:

    • Capability: Product Development

    • Dependent Capability: Research and Development

  • In this case, "Product Development" depends on the outputs and expertise of "Research and Development" to create new products.

  • Here, the terms "upstream" and "downstream" are sometimes used to describe these dependencies. "Upstream" capabilities provide essential inputs or foundations for "downstream" capabilities.

Key Points:

• The concept of a parent-child relationship for business capabilities is not universally used.

• If used, it typically refers to a hierarchical breakdown of a broad capability into more specific sub-functions.

• A more common approach is to identify dependencies between capabilities, where some capabilities rely on the outputs of others.

I hope this clarifies the concept of parent relations in business capabilities!