Summary comparison - Orthogramic Metamodel and BIZBOK

Introduction

While BIZBOK offers a structured and comprehensive approach to business architecture, the Orthogramic Metamodel builds upon and modernises this foundation with a more dynamic, interconnected, and schema-based model. Several key distinctions position the Orthogramic Metamodel as a forward-looking alternative:

Real-time integration and adaptability

BIZBOK typically treats business architecture as a documentation discipline, with periodic updates and static artefacts. The Orthogramic Metamodel enables a continuously evolving model, supporting real-time updates, feedback loops, and predictive analysis across all domains.

Democratised contribution to modelling

The Orthogramic Metamodel is designed to be accessible and applicable across a wide range of roles—not only enterprise architects. It supports collaborative modelling through structured, machine-readable formats and clearly defined relationships. This contrasts with BIZBOK's more centrally controlled documentation style.

Inter-unit domain relationships

The Orthogramic Metamodel includes a formalised structure for defining how organisational units relate to business architecture domains. It specifies roles such as Owning Unit, Providing Unit, Consuming Unit, and Dependent Unit—enabling clarity in cross-functional responsibility and alignment. These inter-unit relationships are not directly addressed in the BIZBOK framework.

Strategic Response Model

A distinctive feature of the Orthogramic Metamodel is the Strategic Response Model, which defines how environmental changes, performance insights, and stakeholder needs can drive coordinated adjustments across strategy, policy, capabilities, and initiatives. This formalises the connection between sensing and responding—beyond the more fragmented strategic analysis in BIZBOK.

The Strategic Response Model includes:

Triggers: A structured taxonomy of events, insights, or conditions that prompt organizational responses, categorized by type, origin, timeframe, and impact level.
Rationales: Formalized justification objects that bridge triggers and responses, classified by orientation (reactive/proactive), type, reasoning pattern, and evidence base.
Performance Indicators: Comprehensive measurement framework including leading indicators, outcome timeframes, and measurement methodologies.

This structured approach enables traceable, auditable, and adaptive decision-making throughout the organisation, providing end-to-end visibility from external stimuli to organizational response.

Schema-first and open

The Orthogramic Metamodel is published using JSON Schema under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. This makes it transparent, extensible, and integrable with systems that automate analysis, modelling, or validation. By contrast, BIZBOK is primarily documentation-driven and not designed for automation or data exchange.

Holistic domain interconnection

The Orthogramic Metamodel emphasises the traceable relationships between domains—such as how a Strategy influences Capabilities, which are supported by Policies and evaluated through Performance. These interdependencies are expressed in structured data and form part of a consistent logic model, enabling a system-wide view of alignment and impact.

Policy and performance as core domains

Unlike BIZBOK, where policy and performance are treated as supporting concepts, the Orthogramic Metamodel recognises Policy and Performance as full domains. This elevates their role in governance, compliance, and continuous improvement within the strategic architecture.

The Performance domain includes a sophisticated framework for measurement that goes beyond traditional KPIs:

Leading indicators that signal early progress before outcomes materialize
Outcome timeframes categorized as immediate, intermediate, and long-term
Multiple measurement methodologies (objective, subjective, proxy)

This comprehensive approach enables organizations to anticipate performance trends, not just measure past results.

In summary

The Orthogramic Metamodel retains the conceptual strengths of BIZBOK while advancing it into a flexible, interoperable, and responsive framework. It is designed not just for documentation but for systemised understanding and strategic transformation—aligned with the needs of modern, adaptive enterprises. Through its structured Strategic Response Model, formalized Rationales, comprehensive Trigger taxonomy, and predictive Performance indicators, the Orthogramic Metamodel offers a more complete framework for navigating organizational change in complex environments.