Organizational Adoption of Capability Management

Abstract

The introduction of capability management into an enterprise and establishment of a supporting organization structure, like in many other management approaches, affect different parts of the enterprise and require careful preparation. In general, the first recommended step is to evaluate suitability of capability thinking and the capability management approach. This chapter describes criteria that suggest favorable and unfavorable organizational situations for introducing capability management. Furthermore, pitfalls, limitations, and when and how not to use capability management are discussed. If the decision in favor of a capability management introduction was made, the next choice is between two principal ways of applying capability management, which are also described in this chapter: (1) Project-oriented use of Capability-Driven Development (CDD) assumes that capability management is used only for clearly identifiable parts of an organization, e.g., for certain business services. (2) Establishment of capability management in the regular organization structure prepares the whole enterprise or at least certain units for the long-term use of capability management. Here, the approaches “all-do-some” (ADS) and “some-do-all” (SDA) are presented.