Capability Based Planning: Purpose, Scope, & Rationale

Capability Based Planning (CPB) enables organizations to systematically translate strategic objectives into targeted capability investments by evaluating business capabilities across four critical dimensions: People, Process, Technology, and Data. Through structured assessment, collaborative prioritization, and evidence-based decision-making, CBP identifies which capabilities require enhancement and what specific improvements will deliver the greatest strategic value.

We have created a new component and workspace called the Capability Health Check to serve as the diagnostic foundation of this planning approach, providing organizations with flexible assessment options matched to their needs. Organizations can choose between Lite assessments (evaluating 4 dimensional-level requirements) for rapid screening, portfolio-level prioritization, and ongoing monitoring, or Full assessments (evaluating 16 specific quality requirements) for detailed diagnostic analysis, root cause identification, and targeted improvement planning. Both assessment modes generate quantified exposure scores that prioritize capability gaps and inform the creation of capability deltas for strategic realization.

More information can be found in the Capability Based Planning - (CBP): Metamodel

Contents

Organizations often struggle to understand what specific factors are hindering their business capability performance. Without a structured approach to evaluating capability quality across multiple dimensions, improvement efforts become scattered, resources mis-allocated, and strategic initiatives failing to address the underlying dynamics and constraints that shape performance.

Capability Based Planning provides organizations with a systematic methodology for translating strategic objectives into targeted capability improvements. At its core, CBP answers a fundamental question: Which capabilities require investment, and what specific enhancements will deliver the greatest strategic value?

The approach recognizes that capability effectiveness depends on the quality and alignment of four fundamental dimensions working together: People, Process, Technology, and Data (PPTD). By establishing a clear understanding of capability health across these dimensions, organizations can make evidence-based investment decisions that align resources with strategic priorities.

The Capability Health Check serves as the diagnostic mechanism within this planning framework: a structured, collaborative assessment that evaluates business capabilities across all four PPTD dimensions. Through systematic evaluation of quality requirements, stakeholder workshops, and quantified prioritization, the Health Check transforms subjective capability concerns into objective evidence about where quality gaps exist and which improvements will deliver the greatest impact.

This diagnostic insight becomes the foundation for creating Capability Deltas, the representation of a gap in functionality/execution from the business perspective, specifically leading to actionable improvements that address identified quality gaps. Capability Deltas first appeared in the Strategy to Execution solution described here. These deltas then flow into the broader Strategy to Execution framework, ensuring that capability investments are:

By integrating capability assessment, Capability Delta identification, and strategic realization, Capability Based Planning (CPB) creates a complete pathway from understanding capability performance to delivering targeted improvements that advance strategic goals.

Organizations can choose between two assessment approaches based on their needs:

Businesses find Capability Health Checks useful for systematically identifying quality gaps, building stakeholder consensus on priorities, and creating targeted improvement initiatives that address root causes rather than symptoms. The Lite assessment enables quick identification of problem areas, while the Full assessment pinpoints specific quality deficiencies requiring attention.

PPTD Framework Overview - showing four pillars: Data, Process, People, Technology together with their respective quality requirements beneath each

Using the PPTD framework, we can see how the four dimensions provide a comprehensive perspective on capability quality, with each dimension containing specific quality requirements that collectively determine capability health.

Ardoq's Capability Based Planning Solution enables organizations to deliver maximum capability performance by systematically evaluating, prioritizing, and addressing quality gaps across the People, Process, Technology, and Data dimensions. It aligns stakeholder perspectives, creates objective prioritization through exposure scoring, and connects quality concerns directly to improvement initiatives, answering critical questions about what is affecting capability performance and which improvements will deliver the greatest impact.

1. What specific quality issues are affecting this capability's performance?

Bubble chart showing the distribution and prioritisation of the quality requirements

2. How should we prioritize improvements across multiple quality concerns?

Dependency map showing the stakeholder’s level of importance and concern with each quality requirement and the deltas produced to address the highest level of exposure (Importance x concern)

3. How do we connect quality concerns to actionable improvements?

These questions can be answered by:

Assessing capability quality using the PPTD framework provides a clear, holistic, view of what factors are affecting capability performance across all critical dimensions.

Several distinct approaches to Capability Based Planning have evolved across different contexts and applications. These include:

Most organizations in practice use hybrid approaches that combine elements from multiple methodologies, with the most common being Business Architecture + Portfolio Management for enterprises, Scenario-Based + Risk-Based for uncertain environments, and Agile + Business Architecture for digital transformation. The right approach depends on organizational context (industry, size, maturity), planning objectives (transformation vs. optimization), environmental conditions (uncertainty, rate of change), and available resources (expertise, data, time).

Our goal with the Capability Based Planning solution is to initially provide a structured assessment for understanding any Business Capability’s quality across the four dimensions that determine performance. Capability Health Checks provide valuable insights from collaborative stakeholder engagement that identify specific improvement opportunities and create consensus on priorities. This assessment follows the same approach as other assessments in Ardoq such as the Solution Health Check. We may extend this in a later version to incorporate other aspects.

Quality in capability assessments is about how well the capability meets stakeholder expectations and requirements across all dimensions that affect its performance. It is fitness for purpose measured against specific, observable criteria.

Quality is evaluated across multiple perspectives because capabilities are complex systems. A capability might have excellent technology but poor process efficiency, or highly skilled people but inadequate data quality. Only by examining all dimensions can we understand true capability health.

"Building effective data management capabilities requires solving a complex, multi-dimensional problem. Breaking down the problem into its components makes it easier to pinpoint an organization's weaknesses, and be specific when building a roadmap for improvement. Looking at them under the length of people, process, and technology ensures an exhaustive analysis of factors that make an organization successful." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283226690_Three_New_Dimensions_to_People_Process_Technology_Improvement_Model

In Full Capability Health Checks, quality is measured through 16 specific requirements spanning the four dimensions. Each requirement represents a measurable aspect of capability performance that stakeholders can evaluate based on both its importance to success and their level of concern about current performance. Quality improvements are realized through targeted capability deltas that address the highest-exposure gaps identified in the assessment.

The PPTD Framework is a structured approach to capability assessment that evaluates quality across four interdependent dimensions: People, Process, Technology, and Data. Each dimension contains specific quality requirements that collectively determine capability effectiveness. The framework recognizes that capability performance depends on all four dimensions working in harmony.

Excellence in one dimension cannot compensate for deficiencies in others; technology alone cannot overcome process inefficiency, just as highly skilled people cannot succeed with poor data quality. A PPTD assessment provides a systematic method for identifying which specific quality requirements need attention and objectively prioritizing improvements based on their exposure (importance to success multiplied by level of concern about current performance).

Stakeholder-Focused:

Capability Health Checks are centered on gathering diverse stakeholder perspectives about capability quality. They bring together people from across the organization who realize, implement, interact with, or depend on the capability to build a shared understanding of quality gaps.

Dimension-Balanced:

The framework ensures equal attention to People, Process, Technology, and Data dimensions. Full assessments systematically evaluate all 16 quality requirements rather than focusing only on technical or operational concerns.

Collaborative and Consensus-Driven:

Assessments are conducted in workshop settings where stakeholders collectively discuss and agree on scoring. This collaborative approach builds ownership and ensures priorities reflect diverse perspectives rather than individual opinions.

Quantitatively Prioritized:

The Exposure calculation (Importance × Concern) creates objective, transparent prioritization of quality gaps. This mathematical approach eliminates subjective debate about which concerns should receive resources and attention.

Action-Oriented:

Assessment findings directly inform capability delta creation, ensuring quality concerns translate immediately into improvement plans. Integration with Strategy to Execution connects deltas to initiatives for implementation tracking.

The Capability Health Check solution offers two assessment formats, allowing organizations to match their assessment approach to their specific context, time constraints, and improvement objectives.

The Lite Capability Health Check evaluates overall quality across the four PPTD dimensions without drilling into specific characteristics within each dimension.

What It Assesses:

Recommended For:

Typical Duration: 1-2 hours per capability

Output: Directional guidance identifying which dimensions (People, Process, Technology, Data) have quality concerns requiring attention, with high-level exposure scores guiding prioritization.

Capability Deltas Created: Dimension-level improvement initiatives (e.g., "Improve Process quality for Order Management capability")

The Full Capability Health Check evaluates specific quality characteristics within each dimension, providing detailed diagnostic precision.

What It Assesses:

People Dimension (3 specific requirements):

Process Dimension (4 specific requirements):

Technology Dimension (5 specific requirements):

Data Dimension (4 specific requirements):

Recommended For:

Typical Duration: Half-day workshop per capability (3-4 hours)

Output: Precise identification of specific quality gaps with detailed exposure scores enabling targeted improvement planning and resource allocation.

Capability Deltas Created: Specific, requirement-level improvement initiatives (e.g., "Improve Process Efficiency for Order Management capability" or "Address Data Accuracy gaps in Customer Master")

Many organizations adopt a progressive approach to capability assessment:

Phase 1 - Portfolio Screening (Lite):

Phase 2 - Detailed Diagnosis (Full):

Phase 3 - Monitoring (Lite):

This progressive approach maximizes assessment efficiency while ensuring detailed attention where it matters most.

Important Note: Organizations can transition from Lite to Full assessment for any capability at any time. The Lite assessment creates a foundation that can be expanded into Full assessment when deeper insights become necessary.

Repeatable for Progress Tracking:

Organizations can repeat assessments over time to measure improvement, creating baselines and demonstrating ROI on capability investments. Trend analysis reveals whether quality gaps are closing and whether interventions are effective.

There is an excellent piece on the relationship between capabilities, processes, and improvement approaches in the document What Are the Differences Between Business Capabilities, Processes, and Value Streams?

Modeling Capability Health Checks

Capability Based Planning Metamodel showing Capability Health Check component connected to Business Capability and Quality Model Requirements

The Capability Health Check consists of a few very important components. The detailed document can be found here
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Firstly, you will set up a Capability Health Check workspace where you will capture your Health Checks using the Capability Health Check component type. The Health Check component consists of several fields that calculate the stakeholder’s feedback scores from the assessment. The feedback is captured in fields on the Depends on reference which connects the Health Check component to the individual quality requirement being assessed.

When a new Capability Health Check is created, a Has Subject reference connects the health check to the target business capability component. This allows you to repeat the same Capability Health Check survey as often as necessary.

After the health check process, you will be invited to identify a Capability Delta. Capability Deltas are an important part of the realization process of health checks because they take the output of the health check and connect it to an actual change within the organization enabling you to see how the assessment will improve the capabilities. If a Business Capability delta is selected, when it is submitted a Is Impacted By reference is created from the business capability to that delta. To learn more about how capability deltas are realized read the Strategy To Execution: Purpose, Scope and Rationale.

For a more detailed explanation of the Capability Health Check component, reference, and field types, please review the Metamodel document here

For Lite Assessments:

For Full Assessments:

When assessment findings identify quality gaps requiring action, capability deltas can be created using the Create Capability Deltas - CBP survey. These deltas become inputs to the Strategy to Execution solution for realization through initiatives.

Progressive Modeling Pattern: Organizations often:

The Full definition of the model, including the relationships between Lite and Full assessments, is detailed in the Capability Based Planning Metamodel document. Both assessments use Quality Requirements from the PPTD Quality model.

A Quality Requirement is a specific, measurable aspect of capability performance that stakeholders can evaluate. Quality Requirements define observable characteristics that determine whether a capability is functioning effectively across People, Process, Technology, and Data dimensions.

Quality Requirements provide:

Quality Requirements are organized in a two-level hierarchy:

The Lite assessment evaluates broad dimensional health, while the Full assessment examines specific quality characteristics within each dimension

The Full Capability Health Check assesses 16 specific quality requirements organized across four dimensions. Each dimension contains 4-5 specific requirements that collectively determine quality within that dimension.

For Lite assessments, stakeholders evaluate overall dimensional quality without breaking down into specific requirements. For Full assessments, stakeholders evaluate each of the 16 specific requirements listed below:

Exposure scoring is the mathematical approach that creates objective prioritization in both Lite and Full Capability Health Checks. The calculation method is identical for both assessment types; only the granularity differs.

For Lite assessments, exposure scores identify which dimensions (People, Process, Technology, or Data) have the most critical quality concerns requiring attention or further investigation through Full assessment.

For Full assessments, exposure scores identify which specific quality requirements within those dimensions need immediate improvement action.

For each quality requirement (whether dimension-level or specific), stakeholders assess two dimensions:

Importance (1-5)

Use this rubric to assess how important each quality characteristic is to the capability.

Assessment Tip: Consider "If this characteristic were completely absent or failing, could we still realize benefits effectively?" The harder it is to answer "yes," the higher the importance score should be.

Level of Concern (1-5)

Use this rubric to assess your level of concern about the current state of each quality characteristic.

Assessment Tip: Consider "How much is the current state of this characteristic hindering our capability performance?" The more it's actively causing problems or creating barriers, the higher the concern score should be.

Exposure Calculation:

This multiplication creates a 1-25 scale that quantifies priority. The Level of Exposure identifies which quality requirements need attention:

20-25: Critical Priority

15-19: High Priority

10-14: Medium Priority

5-9: Low Priority

1-4: Minimal Priority

Prioritization Note: Focus improvement resources on Critical and High Priority items first as these offer the greatest impact on capability effectiveness and represent the most significant risks to value delivery.

The exposure score creates transparency and objectivity in prioritization, eliminating subjective debates about which quality gaps should receive resources and attention. Stakeholders can clearly see why certain improvements take priority based on mathematical calculation rather than opinion.

The Capability Based Planning solution does not include a dedicated roadmap view. Instead, roadmap visualization is delivered through the Strategy to Execution solution, where Initiatives carry the date fields necessary for timeline planning and sequencing. Checkout the Strategy to Execution Capability Delta Presesntation for examples of Capability based roadmaps.

Capability Deltas include an Calculated Active Period field that is calculated from the connected Initiative component in Strategy to Execution. This calculation flows through the Realizes reference from the Initiative to the Capability Delta, ensuring that delta timelines remain synchronized with strategic planning cycles.

For this calculation to function correctly, each Capability Delta should be connected to an Initiative using the Realizes reference. This connection ensures that:

Organizations requiring roadmap visualization of capability improvements should use the Strategy to Execution timeline and Gantt views, filtering to show Capability Deltas and the Initiatives that realize them.

Checkout the Strategy to Execution Capability Delta Presesntation for examples of Capability based roadmaps.

1. Flexible Assessment Granularity

Description: The Capability Health Check provides two levels of assessment granularity, Lite and Full enabling organizations to match assessment depth to their specific context, time constraints, and improvement objectives. This flexibility allows efficient portfolio screening through Lite assessments while reserving detailed diagnosis for capabilities that warrant comprehensive evaluation.

Supporting Reference: Maturity and assessment frameworks emphasize the importance of proportionate evaluation approaches that match assessment effort to organizational needs and readiness. Flexible assessment strategies enable organizations to build assessment capabilities progressively while maximizing the ratio of insight to effort (CMMI Institute, 2018; Paulk et al., 1993).
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2. Multi-Dimensional Capability Assessment

Description: Capability Health Checks recognize that capability effectiveness depends on the quality of four interdependent dimensions working together. Technology alone cannot compensate for process inefficiency, just as highly skilled people cannot overcome poor data quality. Only by examining all dimensions can organizations develop complete understanding of capability health.

Supporting Reference: Research on capability maturity models demonstrates that single-dimension assessments e.g. the traditional 1-5 Maturity Value (particularly technology-focused approaches) consistently fail to predict capability performance. Organizations must evaluate People, Process, Technology, and Data holistically to understand true capability health (Paulk et al., 1993; Rosemann & de Bruin, 2005).

3. Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement

Description: Workshop-based assessments bring together diverse expertise from across the organization, creating shared understanding of quality gaps and collective ownership of improvement priorities. This collaborative approach ensures assessments reflect multiple perspectives rather than individual opinions.

Supporting Reference: Research on participatory decision-making demonstrates that involving stakeholders in assessment and decision processes improves both the quality of decisions and their implementation. Contingency models of leadership show that participatory approaches are particularly effective when subordinate acceptance is critical to implementation and when subordinates share organizational goals (Vroom & Yetton, 1973). Implementation research confirms that participation tactics achieve substantially higher success rates (75%) compared to directive approaches (43%), with collaborative engagement creating psychological ownership that drives follow-through (Nutt, 1986).

4. Quantified, Objective Prioritization

Description: The Exposure calculation (Importance × Concern) creates transparent, mathematical prioritization that eliminates subjective debate about which quality gaps deserve resources and attention. Stakeholders can see exactly why certain improvements take priority based on objective scoring.

Supporting Reference: Quantified prioritization approaches align with established risk assessment methodologies that combine likelihood and impact dimensions to determine priority. Organizations using structured prioritization frameworks show higher stakeholder satisfaction with resource allocation decisions and demonstrate more effective investment of improvement resources (Kaplan & Garrick, 1981; Keeney & Raiffa, 1976).

5. Action-Oriented Integration

Description: Direct linkage from assessment findings to capability deltas to Strategy to Execution initiatives ensures quality concerns immediately translate into tracked improvement actions. This integration eliminates the common gap between assessment and action.

Supporting Reference: Research demonstrates that integrated assessment-action systems reduce time-to-improvement by an average of 50% compared to disconnected assessment approaches. Organizations that directly connect assessment findings to tracked initiatives show significantly higher ROI on capability investments (Hammer, 2007).

1. Comprehensive, Balanced Evaluation

Strength: The PPTD framework ensures equal attention to all dimensions affecting capability performance, preventing the common mistake of technology-only assessments that miss critical gaps in process, people, or data quality.

Supporting Reference: Research demonstrates that single-dimension assessment approaches can lead to imprecise or incorrect identification of root causes. Multi-dimensional frameworks that examine interconnected organizational factors (such as people, process, technology, and governance) enable more accurate diagnosis and comprehensive improvement strategies (Lin et al., 2022; Rosemann & de Bruin, 2005).

2. Stakeholder Consensus and Ownership

Strength: Collaborative workshop assessment builds shared understanding and collective commitment to improvement priorities. Participants become invested in both assessment accuracy and improvement success.

Supporting Reference: Research demonstrates that participatory approaches to assessment and decision-making lead to higher implementation success rates than top-down methods. Stakeholder involvement in assessment processes improves data quality, enhances understanding of findings, and increases adoption of recommendations (Guijt, 2014). Participative implementation tactics show substantially higher success rates compared to directive approaches, with stakeholder engagement creating psychological ownership that drives follow-through on improvement actions (Nutt, 1986).

3. Transparent, Data-Driven Prioritization

Strength: Exposure scoring creates objective, mathematically-based prioritization that builds stakeholder trust in resource allocation decisions. This transparency eliminates political debates about which improvements deserve attention.

Supporting Reference: Quantified prioritization approaches provide transparent, mathematical foundations for resource allocation decisions. Multi-criteria frameworks that systematically evaluate and prioritize objectives enable more structured decision-making processes, reducing reliance on subjective judgment alone (Keeney & Raiffa, 1976). The exposure calculation (Importance × Concern) creates visible, defensible rankings that stakeholders can understand and validate.

4. Repeatable Progress Measurement

Strength: Organizations can repeat assessments over time to measure improvement, creating baselines and demonstrating ROI on capability investments. Trend analysis reveals whether quality gaps are closing and interventions are effective.

Supporting Reference: Longitudinal maturity assessment approaches enable organizations to track progress over time, compare results against improvement goals, and demonstrate the value of capability investments. Continuous assessment methods provide organizations with trend-based views that reveal whether interventions are effective and support data-driven improvement planning (ITIL, 2024; Keeping Your Maturity Assessment Alive, Springer, 2023).

5. Seamless Integration with Capability Management

Strength: Direct connection between PPTD assessments, capability deltas, and Strategy to Execution ensures findings drive action. This integration closes the assessment-action gap that plagues many improvement approaches.

Supporting Reference: Integrated approaches that directly connect assessment findings to improvement initiatives enhance organizational effectiveness. Process-based frameworks that link assessment to action enable organizations to comprehensively formulate and track transformation efforts, reducing the common problem where organizations make little progress despite investment in assessment (Hammer, 2007).

6. Holistic Systems Perspective

Strength: PPTD assessments recognize that capabilities are complex systems where dimensions interact and affect each other. This systems thinking prevents solving symptoms while missing root causes.

Supporting Reference: Systems thinking emphasizes seeing interrelationships rather than linear cause and effect chains, enabling organizations to understand how different elements of a system interact. Organizations that adopt systems perspectives can better identify leverage points for change and avoid fragmented approaches that address symptoms rather than underlying structures (Senge, 1990).

Further Reading

Check out the following documents for more information about [Business Capability Modeling](https://help.ardoq.com/en/articles/44051-getting-started-with-business-capability-modeling), [Strategy to Execution](https://app.eu.intercom.com/a/apps/e2bo1r54/knowledge-hub/article/66321), [Business Health Check](https://help.ardoq.com/en/articles/251443-business-health-check-purpose-scope-rationale-closed-beta), and [Capability Based Planning]().

For further reading about capability quality assessment:

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

- Foundational framework for multi-dimensional capability assessment that influenced the PPTD approach

- Reference: Chrissis, M. B., Konrad, M., & Shrum, S. (2003). CMMI: Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement

- Link: https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/cmmi-for-development-guidelines-for-process-integration-and-product-improvement-third-edition/

Business Capability Assessment Methods

- Research on comprehensive approaches to evaluating organizational capabilities across multiple dimensions

- Reference: Rosemann, M., & de Bruin, T. (2005). Proposal for a Competency Center for BPM

- Link: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/25194/

Competing on the Eight Dimensions of Quality

- Seminal work on quality dimensions that informed the PPTD quality requirement framework

- Reference: Garvin, D. A. (1987). Harvard Business Review

- Link: https://hbr.org/1987/11/competing-on-the-eight-dimensions-of-quality

Decisions with Multiple Objectives

- Framework for multi-criteria decision-making that supports the Exposure scoring approach

- Reference: Keeney, R. L., & Raiffa, H. (1976)

- Link: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-98135-000