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Introduction
The strategic response model in the Orthogramic Metamodel provides a structured, traceable way to represent Strategic Response Model provides a formalised structure for capturing how an organisation prepares for and reacts to specific events or conditions—referred to as triggers. These may be internal or external in origin and include changes such as new legislation, technological shifts, workforce disruptions, or emerging stakeholder expectations.
By defining strategic responses through the lens of business architecture domains, the strategic response model enables organisations to systematically assess the impact of a trigger across capabilities, value streams, services, policies, information assets, and stakeholders. It supports alignment of initiatives with strategic objectives and helps clarify the roles of organisation units in responding to change.
This composable artefact strengthens enterprise resilience, supports compliance, and informs forward planning by establishing a consistent format for understanding and managing business strategic responses.
Structure of the artefact
This section outlines how the strategic response model is composed within the Orthogramic Metamodel. It highlights the relationships between the trigger, the impacted organisational domains, and the strategic response artefact that provides a reusable and structured representation of the organisation's response.
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Section
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Description
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Strategic response model trigger
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A defined external or internal event. Example: Proposed national safety legislation for hazardous freight.
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Impacted strategic drivers
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One or more strategic objectives tagged as relevant to the trigger.
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Key organisation units
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Units tagged as responsible, dependent, or impacted based on capability and service roles.
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Affected capabilities
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Filtered based on alignment with strategic objectives or dependency relationships.
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Service dependencies
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Services required to respond to or deliver the desired outcome of the strategic response.
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Value streams engaged
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End-to-end business processes likely to be activated or altered.
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Information requirements
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Information assets needed to inform decisions or satisfy compliance.
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Stakeholders
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Primary stakeholders affected, mapped to expectations, engagement plans, or risks.
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Policies and compliance
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Policies that apply or must be created/updated.
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Performance measures
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KPIs that will demonstrate strategic response readiness or success.
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Initiative/program links
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Existing or proposed initiatives addressing the strategic response.
What is a Trigger?
A trigger is defined as a catalyst event—internal or external—that compels an organisation to adapt. It is not a standalone structural element but a contextual stimulus that prompts changes to strategy, activates capabilities, or demands cross-functional coordination. Triggers may include legislative changes, customer demands, or performance breaches.
A Trigger is not a standalone structural element of an organisation but an external or internal event, condition, or hypothesis that causes the organisation to:
Mobilise capabilities,
Evaluate policies,
Adjust strategies,
Initiate new initiatives,
Coordinate across services and information flows.
In the Orthogramic Metamodel:
Trigger is a supporting artifact, not a domain.
It is only relevant in the context of a
strategicResponseModel.
Example: Strategic Response Model Artefact
This section presents a detailed example of a strategic response model, illustrating how a specific trigger—such as the mandated use of AI in compliance reporting—activates relevant strategies, units, capabilities, and initiatives. It demonstrates the practical application of the artefact in real-world organisational strategic responses.
Strategic response model trigger: Mandatory introduction of AI-enabled safety compliance reporting
Strategic drivers:
Reduce regulatory breach risk
Improve transparency in safety inspections
Key units:
Safety Technology Division (owning unit of AI capability)
Operations (utilising unit for inspection automation)
Legal & Risk (dependent on compliance datasets)
Capabilities:
AI-driven compliance reporting (owned by Safety Tech)
Digital field inspection (provided by Operations)
Safety data analytics (supported by Risk & Legal)
Services:
Compliance assurance service
Safety incident triage
Value streams:
Rail infrastructure incident response
Annual compliance certification
Information:
Real-time safety telemetry
Historical incident database
Stakeholders:
Federal Transport Regulator
Union of Track Workers
Policies:
Data transparency policy
AI auditing standards
Performance KPIs:
% of safety incidents auto-classified
Mean response time to compliance events
Initiatives:
AI for Safety Program (current)
Transparent Audit Framework (proposed)
Strategic Response Model trigger catalogue
The trigger catalogue provides a curated and expanding set of predefined triggers that can be used to initiate strategic responses. Each trigger is tagged to relevant business architecture domains, enabling efficient strategic response planning and alignment across organisational activities.
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Trigger Category
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Example Triggers
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Regulatory or compliance
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New legislation, compliance audit mandate, data sovereignty changes
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Technological change
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AI rollout, cybersecurity breach, platform deprecation
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Environmental & safety
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Natural disaster preparedness, climate risk disclosures, workplace injury reform
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Operational transformation
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Business process outsourcing, shared services implementation, lean redesign
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Strategic re-alignment
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Mergers and acquisitions, board-level strategic pivot, budget realignment
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Customer & stakeholder
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Community expectations shift, digital service demand surge, key account loss
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Workforce & skills
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Critical skill shortage, union action, remote work policy adoption
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Performance response
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KPI threshold breach, repeated incident occurrence, audit fail
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Political or social
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Public inquiry, ministerial intervention, social licence erosion
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Innovation-led opportunity
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Grant funding availability, pilot program success, ecosystem partnership offer
Each strategic response triggered using this catalogue links back to relevant Orthogramic Metamodel domains—such as capabilities, services, initiatives, and stakeholders—to produce a dynamic view of organisational readiness and response.
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responds to external triggers, internal performance insights, and proactive strategic initiatives. It links these drivers to organisational reasoning (rationales) and defines the actions taken across strategic, policy, capability, and initiative domains. By making these relationships explicit, the model supports traceability, alignment, and accountability across the business architecture.
Each strategic response includes references to the triggers that prompted the change or the strategic intents that initiated it, along with the rationales that explain the basis for the response. Responses are associated with affected domains and are monitored through linked performance indicators, which define what success looks like and how progress is measured. These indicators support ongoing evaluation by including target values, baseline comparisons, timeframes, and data sources, enabling continuous assessment of strategic effectiveness.
This model supports continuous strategic alignment by documenting why a change occurred, how it was rationalised, and what was impacted and by how much—across strategies, capabilities, initiatives, policy, and organisational units.
Components of the strategic response model
The Strategic Response Model (SRM) links both proactive intentions and observed conditions—external and internal—to formal responses across Strategy, Capabilities, Policy, Initiatives, and other domains. It is comprised of four core elements:
Strategic Intent: Proactive, forward-looking strategic initiatives that drive organizational change.
Triggers: Events, insights, or conditions that prompt a response. See: Trigger
Rationales: The reasoned justification for responding to a trigger or pursuing a strategic intent. See Rationale
Responses: The aligned changes or activities, captured in other business architecture domains.
Performance Indicators: The quantifiable metrics used to evaluate the success, efficiency, or impact. See: Performance indicators
This structured model enables traceable, auditable, and adaptive decision-making throughout the organisation.
Purpose
The SRM strengthens strategic governance by ensuring that:
Business responses are traceable to defined triggers or strategic intents
Rationales are explicitly captured and consistently structured
Impact across domains and organisational units is recorded
Organisational learning and auditability are enhanced
Proactive strategic planning is integrated with reactive responses
Structure
Each Strategic Response includes:
A trigger or strategic intent: drawn from the shared trigger catalogue or strategic intent register
A rationale object: structured and detailed, replacing simple references
One or more affected domains: such as policy, initiatives, or capabilities
Impacted organisational units: using defined role types
Response actions: steps taken or planned
Expected outcomes: anticipated benefits or changes in performance
A performance indicator measuring a response
Affected domains
Strategic responses typically impact one or more of the following domains:
Strategy: adjustments to goals or strategic direction
Capabilities: development, enhancement, or decommissioning
Initiatives: programs or projects started or stopped
Policy: introduction or amendment of rules and frameworks
Performance: redefinition or reweighting of KPIs
Information: changes to how data is used or governed
Value Stream: refinements in end-to-end value delivery
Impacted organisational units
The impactedUnits array uses standardised relationship roles (as defined in the Inter-unit Domain Relationships model). See: https://orthogramic.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/OM/pages/285016368
Strategic intent model
The Strategic Intent Model provides a structured approach for capturing proactive, forward-looking strategic initiatives that drive organizational change. Unlike triggers which are reactive in nature, strategic intents represent deliberate organizational choices to pursue opportunities for innovation, growth, efficiency, or other strategic advantages.
Relationship with strategic responses
Strategic Intents have a one-to-many relationship with Strategic Responses. A single intent can spawn multiple coordinated responses across different domains and organizational units. This relationship is bidirectional, as Strategic Responses reference the Strategic Intent that initiated them through the intentReferences field.
Intent register
The organization maintains a Strategic Intent Register that catalogs all proactive strategic initiatives. This register enables:
Tracking of intent-to-response relationships
Assessment of strategic alignment
Evaluation of intent completion and effectiveness
Analysis of organizational proactivity vs. reactivity
Strategic context and relationships
Each Strategic Response now includes these properties capture the strategic context and relationships.:
Strategic Themes: Identification of which organizational strategic priorities the response supports, enabling portfolio-level analysis of strategic coverage.
Alignment Strength: A quantitative assessment (1-5) of how closely the response aligns with organizational strategy, supporting prioritization decisions.
Adjacent Initiatives: Related initiatives that complement this response, facilitating coordination and preventing duplication.
Strategic Levers: The primary business mechanisms being utilized (e.g., scale, scope, differentiation), providing insight into how the response creates value.
Strategic Horizon: Categorization using the Three Horizons Framework:
Horizon 1: Core business optimization (0-18 months)
Horizon 2: Emerging opportunities (18-36 months)
Horizon 3: Creating viable options for future business (36+ months)
Purpose - Enhanced Benefits
The enhanced Strategic Response Model further strengthens strategic governance by ensuring that:
Strategic responses are explicitly connected to organizational strategic themes
The degree of strategic alignment is quantifiably assessed
The portfolio of initiatives is coordinated through explicit adjacency relationships
Value creation mechanisms are clearly identified
Time horizons are explicitly considered in strategic planning
Relationship with rationales
Rationales play an important role in classifying and organising strategic responses and intents. Ensure that the trigger catalogue and strategic intent register—which lists common environmental or operational triggers and proactive intentions prompting strategic responses—is responses—are up to date. Reference to the trigger catalogue and strategic intent register within this page ensures that rationales are accurately categorised based on their initiating context, improving traceability from external or internal stimuli through to strategic objectives, initiatives, and performance metrics.
DriverType values for rationales
SRM trigger catalogue as an enumeration list of driverType values for rationales. For example:
"driverType": { "type": "string", "enum": [ "Regulatory change", "Customer demand shift", "Operational risk", "Technology obsolescence", "Performance shortfall", "Cost pressure", "Workforce change", "Stakeholder expectation", "Market opportunity" ], "description": "High-level driver category that provides the basis for the rationale."
}
Definition of strategicResponseModel as a composable artefact
This section formalises the strategic response model as composable within the Orthogramic Metamodel. It outlines the attributes required to define a model, including associated triggers, organisational roles, information dependencies, and KPIs, supporting reuse and integration across governance and planning tools.
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Attribute
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Type
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Description
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id
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UUID
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Unique strategic response model ID
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responseTitle
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Text
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Human-readable name of the strategic response model
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description
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Text
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Summary of the strategic response model’s purpose and scope
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triggerID
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Link to Trigger entity
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Source event or condition
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relatedDrivers
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List of StrategyDriver
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Strategy elements influenced
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affectedCapabilities
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List of Capability
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Impacted capabilities
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relatedValueStreams
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List of ValueStream
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Value streams engaged
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impactedUnits
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List of OrganisationUnit
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Units with strategic response model-specific roles
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servicesInScope
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List of Service
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Services required or affected
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dataDependencies
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List of InformationAsset
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Key information entities involved
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policiesInScope
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List of Policy
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Applicable rules or regulations
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stakeholders
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List of Stakeholder
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Stakeholders affected or involved
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kpis
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List of PerformanceMetric
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Metrics used to assess strategic response model success
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linkedInitiatives
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List of Initiative
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Programs or projects implementing the response
This format ensures that the strategic response definition is:
Declarative (not procedural or UI-specific),
Traceable (everything points to reusable metamodel entities),
Reusable (across tools, audits, planning activities).
Strategic Response Model JSON Schema
{ "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#", "title": "Strategic Response Model Schema", "description": "Schema for representing strategic responses to internal or external triggers that affect business architecture domains.", "type": "object", "properties": { "responseTitle": { "type": "string", "description": "The name or title of the Strategic Response" }, "description": { "type": "string", "description": "A detailed explanation of the Strategic Response and its intent" }, "triggerId": { "type": "string", "description": "Reference ID linking to the triggering event, condition, or driver" }, "triggerType": { "type": "string", "description": "The category of trigger (e.g. Regulatory, Market, Risk, Performance Insight)", "enum": ["Regulatory", "Market", "Risk", "Performance Insight", "Stakeholder Demand", "Technology Shift", "Other"] }, "rationaleId": { "type": "string", "description": "Reference ID linking to the Rationale that supports this response" }, "affectedDomains": { "type": "array", "description": "Business architecture domains that are affected or changed by this response", "items": { "type": "string", "enum": ["Strategy", "Capabilities", "Initiatives", "Policy", "Performance", "Services", "Information", "Value Stream"] } }, "impactedUnits": { "type": "array", "description": "Organisation units impacted by this Strategic Response", "items": { "type": "object", "properties": { "orgUnitTitle": { "type": "string", "description": "The name or title of the impacted organisation unit" }, "relationshipRole": { "type": "string", "description": "The role the unit plays in this response", "enum": ["Owning", "Utilising", "Providing", "Consuming", "Dependent", "Custodian", "Governed by"] }, "impactDescription": { "type": "string", "description": "Narrative explanation of how the unit is affected" } }, "required": ["orgUnitTitle", "relationshipRole"] } }, "responseActions": { "type": "array", "description": "Actions taken or planned as part of the Strategic Response", "items": { "type": "string" } }, "expectedOutcomes": { "type": "string", "description": "Expected results or benefits of the Strategic Response" }, "performanceImplications": { "type": "string", "description": "How this response affects current or planned KPIs or performance metrics" } }, "required": ["responseTitle", "description", "triggerId", "affectedDomains"]}
Definition of trigger as a new open entity
Triggers are defined as a new open entity within the Orthogramic Metamodel, enabling them to be referenced independently and reused across strategic responses. Each trigger includes a unique identifier, category, description, and links to strategic responses in which it plays a role.
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Attribute
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Type
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Description
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triggerID
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UUID
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Unique ID
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label
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Text
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Short name (e.g. “Cybersecurity Incident”)
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category
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Enum
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From defined set (e.g. Technological, Regulatory, etc.)
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description
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Text
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Explanation of why this trigger matters
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examplestrategicResponseModels
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List of strategicResponseModel
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Optional reverse reference
Trigger JSON Schema
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Trigger catalogue reference
Responses reference a trigger selected from a standardised catalogue of events, trends, or insights. This ensures consistency in classifying causes of change and enables systemic analysis across responses.
Strategic response model JSON Schema
See: https://github.com/Orthogramic/Orthogramic_Metamodel
Schema properties
Strategic Response Schema
Field | Description | Example |
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| A unique identifier for the strategic response. |
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| A concise title summarizing the strategic response. |
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| The classification of the response (e.g., Initiative, Policy Change, Capability Development). |
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| A detailed explanation of the strategic response, its objectives, and scope. |
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| An array of |
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| An array of |
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| An array of |
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| Metrics or KPIs that will be used to measure the success of the strategic response. |
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| A list of business architecture domains impacted by this response (e.g., Capabilities, Services). |
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| A reference or description of the plan outlining how the response will be executed. |
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| A description of the anticipated results or benefits from implementing the response. |
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| Organisation units accountable for executing the strategic response. |
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| The planned start date for implementing the strategic response. |
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| The planned completion date for the strategic response. |
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| The current status of the strategic response (e.g., Planned, In Progress, Completed, Deferred, Cancelled). |
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| The date when the strategic response record was last updated. |
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| An array of strategic priorities that this initiative supports. |
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| A numeric rating (1-5) indicating how strongly this response aligns with the overall organizational strategy. Higher values represent stronger alignment. |
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| A list of related initiatives that complement or support this response. |
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| The business mechanisms being utilized to effect change. |
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| Categorization of the strategic timeframe this response addresses. |
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Strategic Intent Schema
Field | Description | Example |
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| Unique identifier for the strategic intent |
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| Concise name describing the strategic intent |
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| Detailed explanation of the intent's purpose and scope |
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| Direct link to the relevant strategic objective |
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| Classification of opportunity type |
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| Expected time horizon for realization |
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| Assessment of organizational readiness |
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| Estimated business value or impact |
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| Assessment of associated risks and unknowns |
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| Strategic responses initiated by this intent |
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| Key organizational units or roles championing the intent |
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| Capabilities expected to be affected |
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| An array of |
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| Metrics or KPIs that will be used to measure the success of the strategic intent |
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| The current status of the strategic intent |
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| The date when the strategic intent record was last updated |
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Enumerations: Strategic Intent Components
Each Strategic Intent includes:
A unique identifier (
intentID)A concise title describing the strategic initiative
A detailed description of the intent's purpose and scope
Reference to the strategic objective it supports
Classification of the opportunity type
Assessment of maturity and uncertainty levels
Estimated value and timeframe
Links to resulting strategic responses
Identified stakeholders and impacted capabilities
Enumeration Values
Opportunity Type
Innovation: Creating new products, services, or business modelsGrowth: Expanding market share, customer base, or revenue streamsEfficiency: Optimizing processes, reducing costs, or improving productivityResilience: Strengthening organizational adaptability or risk managementCompliance: Addressing regulatory requirements or industry standardsDifferentiation: Creating competitive advantage through unique capabilitiesSustainability: Enhancing environmental or social responsibility initiativesTransformation: Fundamentally changing organizational structure or operations
Maturity Level
Conceptual: Early-stage idea requiring significant developmentEmerging: Partially developed concept with initial validationEstablished: Well-defined approach with proven implementation methodsScaling: Successfully implemented and ready for broader adoptionOptimizing: Mature implementation focused on continuous improvement
Potential Value
Low: Incremental impact with limited organizational benefitsMedium: Moderate impact with significant benefits to specific domainsHigh: Substantial impact with organization-wide benefitsTransformative: Fundamental reshaping of organizational capabilities or market position
Uncertainty Level
Low: Well-understood implementation with predictable outcomesMedium: Some unknowns but manageable with existing approachesHigh: Significant unknowns requiring new methods or capabilitiesExperimental: Highly speculative with unpredictable outcomes and potential pivots
Strategic Response Status
Planned: Response defined but not yet initiatedIn Progress: Currently being implementedCompleted: Successfully implemented and operationalDeferred: Temporarily postponed but still intendedCancelled: Permanently stopped before completion
Strategic Intent Status
Proposed: Initial concept under evaluationActive: Approved and currently being pursuedCompleted: Successfully realized with objectives metAbandoned: Discontinued due to changed priorities or conditionsTransformed: Evolved into a different strategic intentSuperseded: Replaced by a newer strategic intent
Strategic Levers
Scale: Utilizing size, volume, or reach to create valueScope: Leveraging breadth of offerings or marketsDifferentiation: Creating unique value propositionsInnovation: Developing novel solutions or approachesEfficiency: Optimizing resource utilizationResilience: Strengthening adaptive capacityOther: Strategic levers not covered by standard categories
Strategic Horizon
Horizon 1: Maintaining and defending core business (0-18 months)Horizon 2: Building emerging business opportunities (18-36 months)Horizon 3: Creating viable options for future business (36+ months)