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Role types for inter-unit domain relationships

Role type

Definition

Usage guidelines

Owning unit

The unit accountable for the governance, lifecycle, and quality of the domain entity (e.g. capability, information asset, or policy).

There should be only one owning unit per entity. Ownership includes strategic alignment, funding decisions, and compliance responsibility.

Providing unit

The unit that delivers the core functionality, service, or resource associated with the domain entity.

A unit may provide for multiple consuming units. May or may not be the same as the owning unit. Must coordinate service delivery or access management.

Consuming unit

The unit that actively uses the outputs or results of the domain entity to perform its own operations.

Typically refers to service consumption or data usage. Consumption should be traceable to specific processes or value streams within the consuming unit.

Utilising unit

A broader term than consuming, denoting any unit that benefits from the domain entity, even if indirectly (e.g. benefits from insight, capability).

Use when a unit depends on value derived from the entity but does not consume or operate it directly (e.g. using KPIs or policy effects).

Custodian unit

The unit responsible for maintaining integrity, accuracy, and compliance of an information or data entity.

Commonly applied to information, records, and policies. The custodian ensures the content remains authoritative, secure, and consistent with standards.

Dependent unit

The unit whose ability to achieve its objectives relies on the effective functioning of another unit’s domain entity.

Use to highlight indirect or downstream impacts, especially in strategic or compliance-sensitive environments.

Supported unit

The unit that gains operational advantage or risk reduction as a result of another unit’s domain activity, but is not actively consuming it.

Typically used where benefit is derived passively (e.g. safety improvement from another unit's policy implementation or data cleansing initiative).

Governing unit

The unit responsible for setting rules, standards, or oversight mechanisms for the domain entity and ensuring compliance across all related units.

Typically applies to policies, regulatory frameworks, or enterprise architecture standards. Governing units may audit, direct, or override other roles to ensure alignment.

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The following domain types may be used as the focal point for inter-unit relationships:

Domain

Typical inter-unit relationship usage

Notes

Capability

Owning, utilising, supporting, consuming, dependent, custodian

Most commonly used; a central anchor for inter-unit coordination

Information

Providing, consuming, custodian, dependent

Typically shared across units with a clear lineage of stewardship

Service

Owning, providing, consuming

Represents operational service dependencies between units

Value stream

Shared, contributing, dependent

Highlights collaborative delivery of customer or internal value

Initiative

Supported by, accountable to

May be indirectly implied rather than structurally modelled as a relationship

Product

Supported, owned, developed by

Used sparingly in inter-unit context; product-level relationships tend to be value stream mediated

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To enhance the usefulness of inter-unit domain relationships in organisational analysis, a numeric relationship strength value may be added. This value provides a relative indication of the intensity, criticality, or frequency of interaction between an organisational unit and the domain entity. It is intended to assist in prioritising governance, resource allocation, or change management efforts.

Scale

Value

Description

1

Very weak – minor or occasional interaction

2

Weak – intermittent or low-impact interaction

3

Moderate – regular involvement or mutual dependence

4

Strong – frequent and important interaction

5

Very strong – mission-critical, embedded, or highly interdependent

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See: https://github.com/Orthogramic/Orthogramic_Metamodel

Schema fields

Field

Description

Example

domainEntityName

The name or title of the domain entity involved in the relationship

Workforce Planning Capability

domainEntityType

The domain type to which the entity belongs (e.g. Capability, Service, Policy)

Capability

relationshipRole

The nature of the organisation unit’s role in relation to the domain entity

Owning unit

orgUnitTitle

The name of the organisation unit holding the relationship role

Human Resources Division

description

A description of how the unit is involved with the domain entity

Responsible for workforce planning systems