

Fogbeam Labs: Why Capability Cases Are a Must When Defining Software Systems - mindcrime
http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-capability-cases-are-must-when.html

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hiccup
I'm having a hard time cutting through the business buzzwords to understand
what these capability cases are. Seems like a standard Waterfall design
methodology used by big consulting companies.

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mindcrime
I assume you are largely referring to the paragraph that begins with:

 _By beginning with the forces affecting the business, and driving through to
solutions and the capabilities needed to enable those solutions, the
Capability Case is exactly the means to understand how to leverage technology
to achieve a strategic / competitive advantage_

If so, it is a fair statement that that paragraph is laden with "business
speak". Perhaps overly so, to the point that it obscures what I was trying to
get across. But the real point is embedded in this:

 _If you are a technologist who speaks "Relational database" and "NoSQL graph
database" and "CORBA" and "RMI" and "distributed / replicated cache" but does
not know anything about "Porter's Five Forces" or "SWOT analysis" or the
meaning of "Value Chain" or "Balanced Scorecard", you will not be properly
equipped to serve in that "gap bridging" role. Likewise, if you are a business
executive who believes "I don't need to know anything about technology, I'll
leave that to the geeks in IT" and you don't know the difference between a
database and a web browser, your days are numbered_

What I'm trying to say is, it's not going to be sufficient, in the future, to
accept being a technologist who is "bothered by business buzz words" or a
"business person who doesn't want to hear any geek crap". Businesses are going
to require people who can speak _at least some_ of BOTH languages.

Now, what I probably failed to do in that article, was to properly justify WHY
Capability Cases are so useful. I probably should have added more detail about
what they are, and added some examples. Perhaps I'll revisit this topic in a
subsequent post and try to make the point a little more clearly.

At any rate, thanks for the feedback, it is much appreciated.

