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Unlock the Power of Your Capability Map

Many organizations struggle to align their day-to-day operations with their strategic objectives. Defining capabilities is a fantastic first step in bridging that gap. But things get truly interesting when you start working with capability heatmaps.

Deeper Insight

Creating a capability map is a solid first step toward understanding your organization. Even without taking further major steps in your business analysis, it can already provide significant value and context. How? By using heatmaps.

These visual representations with color coding allow you to clearly map out various parameters: from the maturity level of business processes, to the fit of applications supporting a capability, to indicating the number of active projects within a capability. These exercises alone can lead to a deeper understanding of your organization - but the real power lies in going beyond that.

You can combine such heatmaps in the next step. For example, you might compare the heatmap of capability maturity with the heatmap showing the number of active projects per capability. This combination can raise valuable questions: are you allocating the right resources to the right projects??

Context Matters

However, be cautious about jumping to conclusions. The answers are not always straightforward. A mature capability with many ongoing projects might initially seem contradictory, but context is key. Perhaps the projects are of strategic importance, or maybe the capability would become immature in the future if certain projects weren’t carried out—due to emerging technologies or shifting market trends, for instance.

Conclusion: By using and combining heatmaps, you can turn your capability map into a strategic compass that supports your decision-making.