OntolEDGY: Enterprise Design Graph InterplaY Ontology

Abstract base class for all EDGY elements.

• link ^op
• flow ^op
• tree ^op
• viewed through ^op
• belongs to facet ^op
• intersects with ^op
• aligns with Gist ^op
• grounded in BFO ^op
• has priority ^dp
• has business value ^dp
• has complexity ^dp
• has tag ^dp

• link ^op
• flow ^op
• tree ^op

• People ^c
• Outcome ^c
• Activity ^c
• Object ^c

The individuals co-creating the enterprise or using products. People are individuals with an identity, motivation and intent, skills and expertise, background, story and personality. They have the unique ability to have ambitions, find meaning and purpose in the world, and share those with other people. The roles people play in an enterprise (for example customer, partner or owner) relate to the activities they are expected to be involved in. A weakness of people is their unpredictability. A strength is their resilience, especially in unexpected situations. These human characteristics enable people to recover gracefully from disruptive situations, learn from mistakes and produce new enterprise value, where automated systems tend to fail and stay broken.

• achieves ^op
• co-creates ^op
• performs ^op

• performs ^op some Activity ^c
  
• uses ^op some Object ^c
  

A result or change that occurs within our enterprise or its ecosystem. Outcomes are the results of activities. These can be intended results such as goals, objectives or more generally the purpose an enterprise strives to achieve. Outcomes can also be unintended, when events unfold unexpectedly and results can only be seen after they appear. Outcomes can be direct outcomes of our activity, or an impact further down the chain of outcomes outside of our direct control or influence. As such, any outcome is a state change we can observe in our own organisation, with our customers or co-creators, in our markets or ecosystem. An outcome represents a state change in or around our enterprise, to be pursued in advance or measured after it can be observed.

• Purpose ^c
• Capability ^c
• Task ^c

What is being done or going on in our enterprise or its ecosystem. An activity represents something happening that is relevant to our enterprise. It can be something done by people individually or collectively, such as work, sports, or performances. An activity can also be used to refer to something that simply happens, without specifying who is doing what. Activities capture the behaviours and movements of our enterprise. This enables us to model and map the dynamic nature of our enterprise and its organisation(s).

• Story ^c
• Process ^c
• Journey ^c

A structure that is relevant to the enterprise. An object is a tangible or intangible multi-part structure such as a machine, building, application or data. Objects can have behaviour, such as performing automated activities, or support people that are doing activities. Objects consist of parts: objects that combine to form an object of a higher complexity and function. For the purpose of enterprise design it is important to understand that not every object can be engineered and predictably (re-)produced. Some objects like machines or software applications are complicated and deterministic and can be engineered to exact specifications. Other objects like plants or social structures are complex and unpredictable and may be influenced to a certain degree only.

• Content ^c
• Asset ^c
• Channel ^c
• Product ^c
• Brand ^c

A perspective or point of view through the prism of which a concept is interpreted. Fundamental perspectives that relate to any enterprise.

• viewed through ^op
• belongs to facet ^op
• intersects with ^op

• Identity Facet ^c
• Architecture Facet ^c
• Experience Facet ^c

Our enterprise establishes shared stories communicated through content to live up to and achieve given purposes. This identity is pursued by its organisation and evoked by the perception of its brands.

Employees and other people, together with assets, perform processes to enable capabilities. They are developed by its organisation and are required to make and deliver the products it offers.

People interact with the enterprise via channels along their journeys to complete their tasks. Enterprises reach out to people through their brands, and make products to be offered to them.

Abstract class for EDGY elements that span multiple facets. Intersection elements (Organization, Product, Brand) bridge two facets and embody the connections between different enterprise perspectives.

• Organization ^c
• Product ^c
• Brand ^c

• An enterprise's purpose expresses what its people believe in, consider valuable, and are striving for, usually expressed as outcomes/goals the enterprise aspires to achieve. These ambitions can range from local success to far-reaching outcomes that impact society, humanity or the planet. The purpose acts as a shared north star people can use to find inspiration and motivation in, and align their activities with. People outside the enterprise use information about its purpose to decide if and how to interact with it. The purpose of an enterprise can be expressed as content that explains what the enterprise wants to achieve.

• A reason why an enterprise exists and what people pursue and believe in.

• pursues ^op
• contextualizes ^op
• expresses ^op
• represents ^op

The way we make sense of our enterprise and communicate to people what it does. An enterprise story is a narrative with our co-creators as protagonists, the enterprise as the setting, the ecosystem as context, and the co-creators' activities as actions. Stories help us make sense of complex ideas, concepts and situations and share that sense with other people. Stories about past or future events can illustrate shared values, assumptions and beliefs and what people can expect when interacting with an enterprise. People actively construct their own mental imagery and meaning when listening to stories. Creating a story is a co-creative process, bringing together a group of stakeholders and helping them tell the story from their own perspectives.

• conveys ^op
• authors ^op
• evokes ^op

What is being communicated to people. Content refers to the information and data that is being communicated between and to people. Content always conveys messages and clues, both explicit and implicit, that people use to construct their perception of the enterprise's identity. It requires a medium to convey those underlying messages and clues to its audiences, such as audiovisual media like text, images, video or accessible alternatives. In an enterprise, various forms of content are being produced and maintained, exchanged and promoted. For an enterprise, content is a valuable asset, vital for its success, both when running processes and when communicating within the enterprise and its ecosystem. The increasing amount and importance of content requires enterprises to develop sophisticated content strategy, inventory and lifecycle management practices supported by information systems.

• conveys ^op
• expresses ^op

What we are able to do by orchestrating people and assets. Enterprises strive to achieve their purpose by creating products that feature in people's experiences. To do so, they must design and realise their capabilities by orchestrating meaningful combinations of people and assets. Each capability produces well-defined outputs for internal or external business use and contributes directly or indirectly to product creation. Capabilities guide the modularisation of our enterprise by defining boundaries around what belongs together and what is distinct from other capabilities. Capabilities can be decomposed into sub-capabilities, usually levels 1 to 3, to create a hierarchy. Each capability must have a clearly assigned business owner to ensure its strategic development and the effective creation of intended outputs.

• co-creates ^op
• realises ^op
• has ^op

• requires ^op some Asset ^c
  
• viewed through ^op some Architecture Facet ^c
  

A set of related activities our enterprise carries out. Processes are the flows of activities needed for product creation (either directly or indirectly). They transform a set of inputs into a set of products or intermediary outputs and consist of a set of activities that are performed in coordination in an organisational or technical environment. A process is composed of activities connected by flow relationships. It can be strictly structured or less structured. Processes can run across several organisational units or can be performed within one organisational unit only. Well-designed processes lead to enterprises that operate efficiently and effectively across all required organisational units.

• realises ^op
• creates ^op

• requires ^op some Asset ^c
  
• viewed through ^op some Architecture Facet ^c
  

An object we need and use to perform our capabilities. Enterprises need to develop, buy and manage a broad range of tangible or intangible assets (such as buildings, machines, raw materials, software applications, financial assets and know-how) to perform the capabilities needed to run their business. Assets as a concept are rooted in economics, strategic management and finance. Buying assets from suppliers connects the enterprise to its supply chain.

What people want to achieve and get done. People have numerous tasks they want to accomplish every day. Those tasks are about the outcomes people want to achieve, not the means to get there. Tasks can be seen as a stable expression of people's needs, motivations and intent. Enterprises appear in people's experiences as brands offering products to help them accomplish their tasks as they go through their journeys. Achieving clarity on people's tasks, ideally backed by evidence through research, offers our enterprise a chance to focus on people's most important needs and motivations. This helps our enterprise improve the role it plays in people's lives.

• serves ^op
• supports ^op

• uses ^op some Channel ^c
  
• viewed through ^op some Experience Facet ^c
  

The events and activities people experience in their lives. A journey describes what a person does, feels, thinks, or otherwise experiences over time as they live a specific portion of their life, in particular when interacting with our enterprise. It is captured as a simplified sequential and chronological representation of activities and events people experience, and tasks they want to accomplish. Journeys are commonly documented using a storytelling format, describing a slice of life of an exemplary person or persona. Aspects that are typically captured are motivation, activities, tasks, channels of interaction, physical or digital environments, emotional states, first-hand observations and analytics data related to the journey.

• is part of ^op
• appears in ^op
• features in ^op

The means people use to engage and interact with us. Channels are the means of communication between people and the enterprise. They are where moments of interaction between people and the enterprise take place. They include media, devices, communication systems, or physical environments used to facilitate interactions.

A group of people working together. An organisation is a complex social structure. People form organisations to collaborate and co-create outcomes they cannot achieve alone without explicit agreements about membership, responsibilities and behavioural rules. Organisations are fractal: they are made up of nested structures (e.g. business unit-department-team) that have similar attributes on each level, such as purpose, goals, capabilities and hierarchy. Organisations are complex adaptive systems. This means they display attributes and behaviours that are designed and managed, as well as emergent attributes and behaviours that arise more or less unplanned out of people's complex behaviour. This emergence means organisations are never fully predictable and deterministic, making organisational design always a mix of design and influence.

• People ^c
• Intersection ^c

• pursues ^op
• authors ^op
• has ^op
• builds ^op
• makes ^op
• performs ^op

• performs ^op some Process ^c
  
• viewed through ^op some Architecture Facet ^c
  
• viewed through ^op some Identity Facet ^c
  

What we make, offer and deliver for people's benefit. Products are the result of our enterprise activity and encompass physical things manufactured and delivered, or services rendered to people. A product can be composed of any combination of physical goods and other tangible and intangible objects. It also includes the activities performed that lead to the production of outputs, and ultimately outcomes desired by the customer or user. A product helps people complete a task, and thereby adds value to their lives when used in the right context. It can be physical, digital, and deliver practical, emotional or monetary value. Creating products requires product planning, management, design, engineering and provision.

• Object ^c
• Intersection ^c

• serves ^op
• features in ^op
• embodies ^op

• makes ^op
• creates ^op

• requires ^op some Capability ^c
  
• viewed through ^op some Architecture Facet ^c
  
• viewed through ^op some Experience Facet ^c
  

Our name and what it stands for. A brand is a symbolic representation that stands for our enterprise and its products. It is designed to communicate our identity, especially how we are different from others. It invokes a set of expectations in people about our enterprise and our products, particularly in relation to people's own needs and desires. People have intentionally designed brand experiences through ads, public communications and their direct experiences with our products. In addition, people's perceptions of our brand is influenced by many other factors: any interaction they have with our products, processes and people; any public communication about our brand; any stories going around. Positive expectations about a brand pull people towards the products an enterprise offers, negative expectations push them away. That's why a brand is also a financial asset we invest in and obtain benefits from. Brand names are often protected as a registered trademark expressed in words, visual signs or other media representations.

• Object ^c
• Intersection ^c

• appears in ^op
• evokes ^op
• represents ^op
• supports ^op

• builds ^op
• embodies ^op

• supports ^op some Task ^c
  
• viewed through ^op some Experience Facet ^c
  
• viewed through ^op some Identity Facet ^c
  

A meaningful structural association between two elements. A link expresses a structural relationship between two elements in terms that explain or illustrate the relevance of that relationship to the enterprise.

• flow ^op
• tree ^op
• achieves ^op
• co-creates ^op
• performs ^op
• pursues ^op
• contextualizes ^op
• conveys ^op
• expresses ^op
• authors ^op
• realises ^op
• requires ^op
• has ^op
• traverses ^op
• is part of ^op
• serves ^op
• appears in ^op
• features in ^op
• builds ^op
• makes ^op
• performs ^op
• embodies ^op
• evokes ^op
• represents ^op
• creates ^op
• uses ^op
• supports ^op
• viewed through ^op

An element influences another by passing objects. An enterprise functions through the way its parts influence each other to produce an aggregated result no single part can produce alone. Understanding and improving the effectiveness and ease with which things flow through the enterprise and its elements helps it function efficiently and effectively.

Hierarchical relationship between EDGY elements, representing decomposition or containment structures.

People achieve outcomes through their activities and collaborations.

People co-create capabilities through collaborative effort.

People perform activities as part of their roles in the enterprise.

An organisation pursues purposes. EDGY wiki: 'organisation pursues purpose'. People achieve Outcomes (via edgy:achieves); Organisations pursue Purpose as a deliberate strategic act.

A story contextualizes purpose by providing narrative meaning.

Content conveys stories through various media and formats.

Content expresses purpose through meaningful communication.

An organisation authors stories as part of its identity narrative. EDGY wiki: 'organisation authors story'.

A process realises a capability by orchestrating activities and assets.

An element requires capabilities or assets to function. Applies to processes, products and capabilities.

An organisation has capabilities. EDGY wiki: 'organisation has capability'. Renamed from 'possesses' for fidelity to the original EDGY language.

A journey traverses channels as people interact with the enterprise.

A task is part of a journey. EDGY wiki: 'task is part of journey'. Renamed from 'marksA' for fidelity to original EDGY language.

A product serves tasks by helping people accomplish what they need.

A brand appears in people's journeys through touchpoints and interactions.

A product features in people's journeys as a means to accomplish tasks.

An organization builds and cultivates its brands.

An organization makes products through its capabilities and processes.

An organisation performs processes. EDGY wiki: 'organisation performs process'. Distinct from edgy:performs (People→Activity) — this is the Organisation-specific specialization for Process.

A product embodies a brand through its design and experience.

A brand evokes stories in people's minds through associations and perceptions.

A brand represents purpose by communicating what the enterprise stands for.

A process creates products. EDGY wiki: 'process creates product'. Narrowed from Activity→Object to match the specific EDGY named link.

People/Activity use Objects; Task uses Channel. EDGY wiki: 'task uses channel' + base element pattern 'people use objects'.

A brand supports tasks. EDGY wiki: 'brand supports task'. Note: the generic Object→Outcome restriction remains as an OWL someValuesFrom on Object class.

Associates an EDGY element with the facet perspective(s) through which it is interpreted. Used in OWL restrictions to formally bind elements to their facet(s).

Associates an EDGY element with its primary facet perspective. Used as class-level annotation for querying.

Indicates an intersection element spans multiple facet perspectives.

Maps EDGY element to corresponding Gist enterprise ontology concept.

Maps EDGY element to foundational BFO category.

Priority level of an EDGY element (1-5 scale).

Business value score of an EDGY element.

Implementation complexity score of an EDGY element.

Categorical tag for EDGY element classification.