Capability Development
Make strategy actionable through a set of capabilities that shape your organization transformations
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Course overview
Extend your professional agency
Organizations that don’t express strategy in the form of capabilities often end up asking, “Why isn’t the strategy working?”
To solve that dilemma, Capabilities emerge as a “Rosetta Stone” to translate strategy into projects and processes that are needed to produce desired results. We contend that Capability Models replace organizational charts in discussions about delivery. It answers the question, “What must we be able to do to execute our strategy and deliver results?” This is the work of leaders at all levels. Capabilities connect the work of IT, Business Architecture, Organization Design, Lean Teams, the Project Management Office, and other functions trying to get the right things done.
Apply methods and tools to define capabilities, practice modelling capabilities and assessing them. You will have more than 8 hours of direct access to the faculty, including time after each live session plus the opportunity to engage members of the cohort and learn from them.
Following the course, you and your team will be prepared to look at your organization through the lens of capabilities and lead strategy pursuit.
Who this course is for
01
Organization Design Professionals who want to adapt their organizational structures in the age of AI-enabled organizations.
02
Organization Effectiveness and Business Architecture Professionals who want to learn how capabilities address the missing link in strategy.
03
Leaders at all levels who want to get on the same page regarding capabilities gaps to align and accelerate team productivity.
What you’ll get out of this course
Expand your agency as a leader
- Forget hierarchy and apply new Capability techniques and tools to manage up and across the organization
- Bust functional silos! Learn how to develop more collaborative relationships with other leaders to address shared challenges and goals
Relate Projects and Processes to the Capabilities required by Vision
- Strategy execution is not the work of a few leaders. Earn a seat at the table and contribute to the Mission by developing capabilities
- Close a missing link in strategy execution by defining and evaluating capabilities
Rapidly focus, align and activate transformation
- Develop a common operations language to discuss strategy implications on the organization's potential
- Use capabilities to frame “big questions” to manage up and move forward
- Start building capabilities needed for the future
What’s included
Live sessions
Learn directly from your instructors in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Course syllabus
5 live sessions • 38 lessons • 5 projects
Week 1
- 🏫
Live Session: Welcome
- 🏫
Live Session: The Power of Capabilities
- 🏫
Live Session: Capability basics
- 🏫
Live Session: About the intersession work
- 📕
BONUS: Making Capabilities Explicit is the Work of Leaders
- 💻
Interactive learning: Your Context and how Capabilities fit into the big picture
- 💻
Interactive learning: Explore the Framework
- 📹
Video: Capabilities as a Source of Innovation: You have to know where to look
- 🧰
Tool: Interviewing tips for capability exploration
- ✍️
Use the Interview guide and collect some language data about capabilities
Submit by Jan 16 - 🎁
How to Look for Capabilities (overview)
- 🎁
Bonus: Organizational Capability Assessment Tool
- 🏫
Live Session: Model your organization as a set of Capabilities
- 🏫
Live Session: Semantics Matter!
- ✍️
Breakout: Draft Capability Statements
Submit by May 15 - 📹
Video: How to communicate unambiguous operational priorities
- 📕
Resource: Semantics Primer
- 🎁
Bonus: Capability application examples
- 📗
Capability Canvassing Example
- 🧰
Tool: Capability Canvassing Data Collection
- 🧰
Tool: How to draft Capability Statements
- 🎁
HR Enabling Capabilities
How would you describe the company's Vision and key near term objectives?
Has their “Vision” changed?
What are examples of Mission Objectives being adapted?
What are some of the Anchors they mention and what guidance did they provide?
What Capabilities were pivotal to their success?
- 📹
Video: Mission and Challenge
- 📓
Case Notes
- ✍️
Build a partial Capability Model
Submit by Jan 19
May
13
Capability development in your context
Module 1: Capability development in your context
. Understand the context in which capabilities make strategy actionable
· Appreciate the power of capabilities with vivid examples
· Clarify and standardize your definition of “capability”
May
15
Shared understanding, the keystone of aligned action
Module 2: Shared understanding, the keystone of aligned action
Ambiguity is the enemy of aligned action!
· Write clear and unambiguous capabilities statements
· Use capability language to communicate Talent, Technology, Process, and Culture requirements
· Develop a reasonable representation of the future state framework of capabilities
· Unite leaders around a story that describes a desired future state
Module 3: Intersession work: case study
Week 2
- 🏫
Live Session: Review and adjust the case model
- 🏫
Scaffold the story of the desired future state
- 🏫
Live Session: Top-Down Model Building
- 🏫
Live Session: Bottom up Model Building
- ✍️
Breakout: Discuss pros and cons of each modeling method
Submit by May 20 - 🏫
Live Session: Socialize and refine the model
- 🧰
Tool: Scaffolding “families" of Capabilities
- 🧰
Tool: Top Down Capability Modeling
- 🧰
Tool: Bottoms up Capability Modeling
- 📹
Self-Study Video: Not all capabilities create value in the same way
- 📗
Summary of Pros and Cons of Capability Modeling
Suggest projects and project sequencing
Focus Lean for continuous improvement
Scale for growth
Select Technology
Use AI in capability development
- ✍️
Plenary Session: Project overload case
Submit by Jan 22 - 🏫
Live Session: Take a fresh look at performance assessment
- 🏫
Live Session: Explore capability extensions
- 🧰
Assessing Capability Value Contribution
- 🧰
Tool: Assessing Capability Performance
- 🎁
Bonus: Clarifying strategy is simple: Aligning your organization is not
May
20
Learn to model your organization as a set of Capabilities
Module 4: Model your organization as a set of capabilities
· Learn how to use the Top-down method
· Learn how to use the Bottom-up method
· Appreciate the criteria for method selection
· Iterate and elaborate the model
· Capture aha moments along the way
May
21
Optional: GenAI Assists to Capability Development
May
22
Capability Assessment: Focus and align your organization
Module 5: Focus, align and activate your organization
· Assess capabilities’ value contributions
· Assess capabilities’ performance
· Use Heat Maps to focus and align projects that Run, Improve, and Transform
· Explore capability applications:
Bonus
- 📲
How to schedule a faculty call
30-minute private coaching call
What students are saying
What people are saying
Will Nicholson
Derval Kennedy
Michael McGovern
BONUS: extras to save you time!
On the job application
Bonus #1: "How to" Videos
Get your team to start developing capability models by sharing our library of recorded videos to teach others in your company to implement our framework. Examples: Capabilities as a source of innovation and The language of business.
Bonus #2 Private Coaching Call
30-minutes
One 30-minute coaching call with your faculty. Let's talk about challenges, strategy execution or a unique circumstance in your company.
Bonus #3: Tools and Templates
Get access to our library of capability tools and templates to further empower your team to define, build and assess capability models. Examples: Bottoms up Capability Modeling: How to do and when to use and Assessing Capability Performance: Take the emotion out of scoring
Meet your instructors
Jim Dowling
Jim Dowling
Co-founder, Capable Company
A business maker, learner, and coach with a keen interest in helping individuals, teams and organizations realize their performance aspirations. After leaving Engineering and Information Technology, Jim found his work/playground in a place where people, process, technology, and business can align to produce amazing results. Jim has led Teaming, Leadership Alignment, Leader Development, Organization Design, Business Transformation, Strategy Clarification programs for organizations in Europe, The Americas, and Asia.
Amber Román
Amber Román
Principal & Founder, Sensata-llc
Outcome-orientated pragmatic leader with a steady track record helping teams, leadership, and organizations grow, scale, and transform. Her 20+ years of expertise in Business Architecture, Information Technology, and Data Architecture, Business Analysis, Agile Project Management and Change Management gives Amber a well-rounded view of transformation. She brings a culturally diverse perspective and insights to address individual leader needs and takes delight in making others shine.
Richard Lynch
Richard Lynch
Co-founder, Capable Company
Curiosity has led Rich into some exciting business innovations such as the balanced scorecard, capability modeling, and new growth platforms. Along the way, he has collaborated with some great people from academia, consulting and client companies. These experiences shape his views on organization design. He has authored three books: Measure Up!, Corporate Renaissance, and The Capable Company. In the field, he has led numerous business transformation projects and has been running Strategy to Execution workshops for leaders at all levels.
Course schedule
4 hours in class per week, + self study
Course Portal opens 1 week prior Cohort start
Familiarize yourself with the portal, Send and receive a few messages, view a video, download a workbook, and complete a 5-minute project.
Tuesday: Capability development in your context
10:00am - 11:30pm EST
Live Session
Thursday: Shared mindset, the keystone of aligned action
10:00am - 12:00pm EST
Live Session
Intersession Work: Case Study
Tuesday: Learn to model your organization
10:00am - 12:00pm EST
Live Session
Thursday: Focus and align your organization
10:00am - 12:00pm EST
Live Session
Learning is better with cohorts
Active hands-on learning
This course builds on interactive courseware, live workshops, and hands-on projects. Join in the dialogue and take back solutions
Adopt a common methods for developming capabilities
You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams and applying models, methds and tools to a partial capability model
Learn with a cohort of peers
Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you