Business capabilities are the building blocks of an automotive software development organization. They describe "what" that organization does, not "how" it does it. A comprehensive capability model provides automotive companies with a helpful framework to succeed in a software-defined future, being more robust than organizational structures or process models.
Business capabilities are “a particular ability or capacity that a business may possess or exchange to achieve a specific purpose or outcome”. This definition is from TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framwork), indicating the background of this concept in Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM).
Business capabilities are the building blocks of a business, but they are abstracted from the organizational model to become more stable in times of continuous improvement, reorganizations, and agile working models. Business capabilities, therefore, describe what an organization does to achieve set goals, not how it does it. As an example, the capability “Software Development” can be realized with internal or external resources and can use traditional or agile methods.
There are several use cases and benefits related to business capabilities. In general, they support the alignment between business and IT by providing a common language and structure for all four views of enterprise architecture, with Business and Information Architecture being closer to the business stakeholders where Application and Technology Architecture views are closer to the IT stakeholders.
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| Four views of Enterprise Architecture |
Mapping what needs to be done: the benefits of capability models
Business capability models are typically used in IT to structure the overall application landscape into smaller domains that have a high cohesion internally and loose coupling to other domains. This reduces dependencies and makes complexity more manageable.
Another major usage of business capability models are heatmaps, i.e. visualizations of specific aspects using colors such as red / yellow / green. Example heatmaps include business fit, technological fit or application lifecycle status. We have developed a quick check method to determine the maturity level per capability from a business process and an IT point of view.
For comprehensive transformation programs in enterprises such as establishing a new practice for ACES ALM or post-merger integrations, a capability-based transformation approach is suggested. TOGAF and ARCHIMATE provide a metamodel for strategic planning that allows the prioritization and mapping of business capabilities to elements such as processes, IT and other resources, value streams and courses of action. EAM tools such as LeanIX support this approach with features for roadmap planning and impact analysis of alternative scenarios.
NTT DATA’s ACES ALM business capability model
The NTT DATA ACES ALM business capability model is based on the Automotive SPICE process reference model (mainly VDA scope with some additions) to provide structure and traceability for potential process improvement or analysis activities. It also incorporates the ACES ALM drivers as described in the previous article and best practices from the automotive industry.
The model on the top layer 1 is structured into capabilities for
- Systems & Software Engineering
- Deployment & Operations
- Support
- Management
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| NTT DATA ACES ALM Business Capability Model (example heatmap visualization) |
On the second layer, 15 business capabilities are described in detail including a list of potential layer 3 capabilities and typical IT tools (commercial-off-the-shelf and open source software COTS / OSS) for the given capability.
Systems & Software Engineering. The primary lifecycle capabilities in the V model for requirements engineering, functional and logical architecture design, software development and integration & test. Please note that for complex systems such as automotive vehicles, these capabilities need to be implemented for multiple levels of the system, e.g. systems of systems (SoS), product, subsystems, components.
Deployment & Operations. The deployment of ACES software to the vehicles while respecting regulations for software update and cyber security management and while using the data collected during operations for data-driven engineering.
Support. The supporting capabilities for the the primary systems & software engineering. Quality assurance is about the objective, independent assurance of the quality of work products. It is also about the resolution of non-conformances including future prevention. Configuration management ensures the integrity of all work products. It is applied over the lifecycle of work products / configuration items. Reporting and collaboration between globally distributed teams are transverse capabilities. Agile is not just a special project management discipline, but also a transformative business capability on its own. Enterprise-wide adoption requires scaled agile frameworks such as SAFe with an integrated set of processes, methods, roles etc. IT infrastructure for ACES ALM includes provision and management of resources such as compute, storage and networking.
Management. Project management capabilities are based on PMI body of knowledge PMBOK and include layer 3 capabilities such as management of scope, time, cost, quality, HR and risk. ACES ALM governance provides leadership, organizational structure, and processes in order to ensure that the ACES ALM capabilities meet the companies’ strategy and objectives.
This concludes the overview on business capabilities for ACES ALM. We will publish a whitepaper on this topic soon. Stay tuned!
Note: this is a cross-post from my LinkedIn article
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