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Nexinc EA Consulting

Service Detail

Capability-Based Planning

Use business capabilities as the stable backbone for strategy, funding, and architecture decisions. We help you define a pragmatic capability map, connect it to applications and initiatives, and use it as a simple, powerful steering tool.

Who this is for

CIOs, heads of transformation, strategy leaders, and enterprise architects who want a common language between business and IT that survives org charts, projects, and product reshuffles.

Typical triggers

  • • Portfolio is a long list of projects with no big picture.
  • • Different domains use different taxonomies, making cross-cut decisions painful.
  • • You need a clear story for where to invest, modernise, or reduce spend.

Engagement length

Typical capability planning engagements run 4–6 weeks for an initial map, heatmaps, and investment themes. Larger enterprises sometimes extend with deeper domain rounds.

What we do in this engagement

  • • Facilitate cross-functional workshops to define or refine your enterprise capability map with business and technology leaders.
  • • Clarify capability boundaries & definitions so teams can consistently classify initiatives and systems.
  • • Map products, processes, applications, and data to capabilities to reveal coverage and gaps.
  • • Classify capabilities as core, differentiating, or commodity to guide investment and sourcing choices.
  • • Create heatmaps that overlay pain points, risk, and opportunity on top of the capability landscape.
  • • Link capabilities to initiatives & roadmaps so portfolio discussions are grounded in a stable business view.

What you get as concrete outputs

  • • A clear capability map (visual + definitions) tailored to your business model.
  • • Capability –to–application / data mapping views for tools like LeanIX or for slides and PDFs.
  • • One or more capability heatmaps (e.g. value vs pain, risk vs investment) ready for exec conversations.
  • • A shortlist of investment themes and focus areas grouped by capability.
  • • Practical usage guidelines so product, architecture, and portfolio teams can keep the map alive.

Outcomes you can expect

Shared language

Business and IT talk about the portfolio in the same terms, making prioritisation and trade-offs easier.

Sharper focus

Investment concentrates on capabilities that truly differentiate you, not on commodity areas with little impact.

Better decisions

Initiatives, modernisation choices, and platform strategies are evaluated against a stable capability backbone.

How we typically work with you

  1. 1. Discover & align. We review existing models, portfolios, and strategy documents, and agree the scope: enterprise-wide, domain, or country.
  2. 2. Co-create the map. Joint workshops with business and technology leads to shape capabilities, definitions, and hierarchy.
  3. 3. Map & analyse. We link applications, data, and initiatives to capabilities and build heatmaps for value, risk, and cost.
  4. 4. Prioritise & plan. Together we cluster changes into investment themes and outline how capabilities drive your roadmap.

Explore capability-based planning for your organisation

In a 45-minute discovery call, we’ll review your current planning approach and sketch how a capability lens can sharpen investment and architecture decisions.

Schedule a Discovery Call

Or email us at info@nexinc.consulting.