Glossary

Traceability chain

Also called: enterprise traceability chain · traceability

The ordered relationship from strategy through capabilities, services, offerings, processes and data to the indicators that verify results.

The traceability chain is the ordered set of relationships that connects intent to evidence: strategy, capabilities, services, offerings, processes, data and configuration items, and indicators. Each link exists because it performs a function, and every artefact must be able to demonstrate its position in the chain.

Its practical consequence is a different definition of a finished process. A process is not complete because it has a diagram. It is complete when it can demonstrate which capability it answers to, which service it delivers, what data it consumes, what rules it applies, who is accountable for it and which indicator proves its result. When those are real repository relationships rather than a documentation convention, the question can be answered by query.

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Related terms

Business capability

What an organization must know how to do, expressed independently of who does it or which system supports it.

Chain link

Each of the seven levels of the traceability chain. Skipping a link produces the pathologies the methodology seeks to avoid: processes without a service, services without capabilities, and…

Digital twin of an organization

A dynamic software model of how an organization operationalizes its business model, responds to change and delivers value.

Executable Business Architecture

Business architecture whose artefacts are the objects a platform actually runs, rather than diagrams describing it from outside.

Indicator families

The classification of indicators by the chain link they measure: strategic, capability, service, process and data.

Intent sheet

The first-phase design artifact that locates the process within the traceability chain, answering why it exists, what value it delivers and which capability it operationalizes.

KPI

A measure that quantifies a declared attribute of something in the architecture, and therefore verifies whether an objective was met.

Objective-Driven Process Design

Designing the future process as the mechanism that maximises a verifiable objective, instead of optimising the current one.

Strategic objective

An outcome the organization commits to achieving within a defined horizon. In the metamodel it is the first object in the chain, and it is not considered governable until quantified into at…

Traceability

The ability of an artifact to demonstrate which other artifacts it relates to and why it exists.

Value proposition

A concrete statement of what outcome a stakeholder expects, under what condition they recognize the value as delivered, and which indicators verify it.