From Business Capabilities to Data Flows

“The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight -Carly Fiorina”

What would be the use of information if you cannot make use of it for your business? And so, shouldn’t you wisely align your business information elements required to support business capabilities which are ultimately linked with enterprise business goals?

The important question is “How can we do this”? Let’s find out.

In any enterprise the information elements exist in form of concepts, information objects, data or data elements, entities, documents etc. In the fast-paced changing environment it is of paramount importance that decision makers have holistic view of the key information of the enterprise (structure and flow). The best way to display this kind of information is models and diagrams.

The structure and flow of information is best represented with the help of models called ‘Data Flows‘. There are two main approaches to work with Business Capabilities and data flows. One is ‘Top-Down’ and other is‘Bottom-Up’. In a Top-Down approach you define the functions which are required to support the business and then align the Information corresponding to these functions. However in a Bottom-Up approach we analyze the information elements which we have, and then synthesize them to be used in different business functions.

In this article I would like to shed some light on the ‘Top-Down‘ approach.

For deriving Data Flows from Business Capabilities the following steps should be used in the listed order.

Please read the complete article here.