Define and add Business Capabilities to your workspace

CHEAT SHEET: COLLECT YOUR BUSINESS CAPABILITIES

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If you are new to Business Capability modeling, you should include your stakeholders (i.e. core team and department heads in your organization) to collect and define your company's Business Capabilities:

What you should do	Further description
Ensure scope of Business Capability effort aligns with organizational goals and timelines	Consider focusing on key business domains before tackling the full enterprise if maturity is low. Don't pursue a lengthy enterprise business capability model alignment exercise if your immediate goal is quick cost saving
Educate stakeholders on purpose and value of Business Capability mode	Highlight the value of a business capability Model that is owned and maintained: clear view of the organization's capabilities, helps to streamline operations, identify redundancies or inefficiencies, etc. Stress the importance of Business Capabilities and Business Architecture for EA and the organization as a whole and link them to the company's future goals/outcomes (both strategically and operationally) Pose questions of the organization that would be answerable with an aligned business capability model as well as ones that can’t be properly answered without (e.g. is the company currently able to do both out-of-home and digital marketing? or which parts of our production & logistics value chain can we cover with our capabilities?) Obtain support of senior leadership on the necessity of business capability model
Establish business ownership of the Business Capability model	Different groups can own different pieces but there should be coverage across the entire model Ensure named individuals are committed to these ownership roles and accountable to EA for breadth, depth, and quality of business capability hierarchy and definitions
Look for industry reference models to use as a starting point/baseline	Depending on your industry
Embed business architects to help facilitate the initiative and guide/mentor the business teams
Consistently share insights leveraging Business Capability model to ensure completeness and accuracy	Show investments by capability (and by maturity or PACE layering) Show costs by capability (and by maturity or PACE layering) Show planned initiatives by capability (and by maturity or PACE layering)
Ensure other corporate processes are using the business capability model for reference	E.g., the strategic planning processes should map planned investments against the business capability model to inform how well the proposed budgets will drive strategic outcomes
Schedule a regular routine to review the overall business capability model with all stakeholders, senior leadership, and downstream consumers of the model	Business Capability models are relatively stable but we must ensure they are accurate, up-to-date, and that ownership changes are handled Highlight value and insights that have been achieved from leveraging the business capability model

DEFINE THE BUSINESS CAPABILITIES OF YOUR COMPANY

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Description

Now it's time to define your organization's Business Capabilities.

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Your task:

Gather your Business Capabilities down to Level 2. As a minimum consider the following Attributes:

• Name
• Related Child/Parent
• Description (if available)

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How to:

Choose your preferred way of following the recommendations provided below in case you do not have an existing Business Capability Map in your organization:

Reference Catalog (recommended)	Workshop
Import your industry-specific business capabilities from the reference catalog directly within the tool in just a few steps. Find the step-by-step descriptionhere.	Organize a workshop with the most involved stakeholders. Again, it is recommended to use the Map as a basis to start with.

Hint

In order to define your Business Capabilities, we recommend aligning with your stakeholders. Open the next section to learn our recommended ways to do so.

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Metrics:

To ensure proper data setup, we recommend orienting yourself on these best-practice metrics:

Best-practice Metrics	Why it's recommended
Level 1 business capabilities: Add a minimum of 7, but no more than 20 to the workspace. Level 2 business capabilities: Add a minimum of 5, but no more than 10 for each level 1 business capability	In general, capturing 7-20 business capabilities at level 1 provides a robust foundation and comprehensive overview for organizations. Adhering to the MECE principle (Mutually Exclusive, Completely Exhaustive) becomes challenging with a high number of business capabilities. Avoiding excessive granularity is important to balance effort and productivity. This strategic approach supports initial use cases and provides further insights once a comprehensive business capability model is established. This methodology aligns with capability-based planning, Pace Layering, and strategy/goal alignment.
Add no more than 3 levels of business capability hierarchy to the workspace	Excessive depth in your categorization runs the risk of over-compartmentalization, potentially leading to a situation where the majority of users may find it challenging to comprehend the Business Capabilities.
At least 80% of Business Capabilities have a description	Clear, concise, and universally understood definitions of business capabilities are crucial for your organization and stakeholders. This clarity is key to facilitating effective analysis and generating insightful outcomes within SAP LeanIX.

ADD YOUR BUSINESS CAPABILITIES TO YOUR WORKSPACE

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Description:

The section Adding & Editing Data into SAP LeanIX explained three different ways to get data into your workspace:

• Excel Import
• SaaS Discovery (related to applications)
• Inline editing

Your task:

Conduct the initial import of your organization's Business Capabilities: (Organizations and Applications will follow later). As a minimum take care of the following Attributes:

• Name
• Related Child/Parent
• Description

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How to:

1. (If needed return to section Familiarize yourself with data import and maintenance features to remember)
2. Choose your preferred way of following the recommendations provided below
3. Afterward navigate to your Dashboard > clickmy Dashboards→select "Application Portfolio Management Onboarding Dashboard: Enterprise Architect"

Reference Catalog (recommended)	Excel Export/Import	Import template	Inline editing	Inventory Builder
Why:	Why:	Why:	Why:	Why:
It enables you to easily import best practice data into your workspace and customize them to your organization.	This method allows you to decide which Attributes you want to import during the initial data import.	This method makes importing during Onboarding easier and specifically focuses on the key Attributes.	This method is more time intense and typically used in order make small adjustments rather for initial data import.	This method uses AI to analyze diagrams and images to automatically extract relevant architectural elements.
How:	How:	How:	How:	How:
Openyour workspace navigate to 'Administration' and click 'Reference Catalogs'. Find a detailed descriptionhere. If your specific industry is not listed, use the default one.	Follow this instruction to create your custom import file via Excel export directly from your Inventory.	Click here to access a predefined Excel import template along with step-by-step video guidance on how to utilize it.	Open your workspace and create the Business Capability Fact Sheet and edit the Attributes directly within the tool. Find a detailed description here.	Click herefor the how-to-video and find the documentation here.

Find further information on the best practices report here.