Understand the relationship between the Data and Information Inventory and the Capabilities Inventory - Data and Information Inventory and Attributes

Understand the relationship between the Data and Information Inventory and the Capabilities Inventory

(Chapter 32 of Data and Information Inventory and Attributes)

Executive Summary: Chapter Overview

IF4IT

The Bottom Line

This chapter explains how the Data and Information Inventory connects to the Capabilities Inventory through input and output relationships. It shows how capabilities consume and produce governed data types, making it possible to trace information flows through business and IT capabilities rather than only through applications or technologies.

Core Concepts

Concept	Definition & Strategic Role
Key Input Data	Key Input Data and Information identifies the governed types a capability requires to operate. It shows dependency on upstream information and supports impact analysis.
Key Output Data	Key Output Data and Information identifies the governed types a capability produces. It clarifies how capability execution creates information used elsewhere in the enterprise.
Capability-Level Flow	Capability-level flow maps data movement to business or IT functions instead of only to systems. This helps executives understand operational dependencies in business terms.

Quick Q&A

Question: Why connect data types to capabilities instead of only to applications?

Answer: Applications show technical implementation, while capabilities show what the enterprise does. Connecting Data and Information types to capabilities reveals business and operating dependencies, allowing impact analysis to explain which functions consume or produce a data type even when applications change.

Capabilities produce and consume Data and Information types. The Key Output Data and Information and Key Input Data and Information attributes on Capability records reference data types by name; when this inventory is mature, those references are replaced by Semantic IDs. The Capabilities Inventory and Attributes is published and available.

When this relationship is established, the enterprise can answer: what data does Capability X require to function? What data does it produce? Which capabilities would be impaired by a quality failure in data type Y? Which data types are produced by only one capability, creating single-point-of-failure exposure in the data production chain?

The Producing Capabilities and Consuming Capabilities relationship attributes in this inventory are derived from the Capabilities Inventory when the cross-inventory linkage is mature. At Crawl and Walk maturity, the connection is maintained manually through the Capabilities Inventory’s Input/Output attributes.

How to cite this page

When referencing this page in academic work, internal standards, or external publications, include the page title, IF4IT as author and publisher (The International Foundation for Information Technology (IF4IT), LLC), the URL, and your access date.

Example (informal web citation):

The International Foundation for Information Technology (IF4IT), LLC. Understand the relationship between the Data and Information Inventory and the Capabilities Inventory | Data and Information Inventory and Attributes. https://if4it.org/best-practices/data-and-information-inventory-and-attributes/understand-the-relationship-between-the-data-and-information-inventory-and-the-capabilities-inventory/ (accessed 2026-09-08).

See About Us for content governance and site-wide citation guidance.

Legal Disclaimers