Strategic Attributes for the Capabilities Inventory - Capabilities Inventory and Attributes

Strategic Attributes for the Capabilities Inventory

(Chapter 13 of Capabilities Inventory and Attributes)

Executive Summary: Chapter Overview

IF4IT

The Bottom Line

This chapter defines strategic attributes that connect each Capability to enterprise direction, including investment priority, business importance, strategic goal alignment, and investment tier.

Core Concepts

Concept	Definition & Strategic Role
Investment Priority	States whether the enterprise intends to invest, sustain, or disinvest in the capability.
Business Importance	Assesses how critical the capability is to operations and competitiveness.
Strategic Goals Alignment	Links capabilities to official enterprise objectives and transformation intent.

Quick Q&A

Question: Which strategic attribute most directly drives portfolio decisions?

Answer: Investment Priority is the most consequential because it expresses the enterprise’s intended direction for capability investment.

Strategic attributes capture the enterprise’s stated direction for each Capability — how important it is, what the investment intention is, how it aligns to strategic goals, and how investment in it is currently classified.

Attribute Name	Maturity	Description and Notes
Investment Priority	Crawl	Description — The enterprise’s stated intention for investment in this Capability: whether to actively grow and strengthen it, maintain it at current levels, or reduce investment and plan for exit. Benefit(s) — Drives portfolio investment decisions in APM and TPM by connecting technology investment to explicit capability-level intentions. Source — Manual Examples — Invest, Sustain, Disinvest Notes — Valid values: Invest, Sustain, Disinvest. Must be set by the Business Owner with Executive Sponsor approval. The single most consequential governance attribute in this inventory.
Business Importance	Walk	Description — The Business Owner’s assessment of how critical this Capability is to the enterprise’s ability to operate and compete. Benefit(s) — Enables risk-weighted portfolio analysis — identifying high-importance capabilities underpowered by their supporting technology. Source — Manual Examples — Very High, High, Medium, Low, Very Low Notes — Valid values: Very High │ High │ Medium │ Low │ Very Low. Assessed annually.
Strategic Goals Alignment [Multi-Value]	Walk	Description — The enterprise strategic goals or objectives that this Capability directly enables or supports. Benefit(s) — Creates a traceable link from the capability portfolio to executive-level strategic intent. Source — Manual Examples — Customer Experience Transformation; Revenue Growth; Operational Efficiency; Regulatory Compliance; Digital Innovation Notes — Use official strategic goal names. Separate multiple values with semicolons.
Investment Tier	Walk	Description — The portfolio tier into which investment in this Capability is currently classified — distinct from the investment direction expressed by Investment Priority. Benefit(s) — Aligns capability investment with the standard IT investment portfolio model. Enables portfolio-level analysis of investment concentration across run, grow, and transform tiers. Source — Manual Examples — Run, Grow, Transform Notes — Valid values: Run │ Grow │ Transform. Run investments sustain current operational performance; Grow investments expand capacity or extend current capabilities; Transform investments fundamentally reshape what the Capability does.

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