Relationship directionality

Introduction

In the Orthogramic, relationships between business architecture elements are inherently directional, conveying the flow of influence, control, or dependency.

Cross Domain Relationships

Cross domain relationships connect elements across different domains (e.g., Strategy, Capability, Initiative) within the same organizational context. These relationships are typically modeled from active domains—such as Strategy, Capability, Initiative, Policy, and Stakeholder—to passive domains like Information, Performance, Product, and Service. This directionality ensures semantic clarity and consistency in modeling, visualization, and reasoning.

Inter-Domain Relationships

Inter-domain relationships illustrate how elements from different domains interact across organizational units. While directionality remains important—indicating, for example, that a Capability in Unit A depends on a Service in Unit B—the strict active/passive domain distinction is less rigid. In this context, the focus shifts to organizational dependencies and the flow of responsibility between units, rather than solely on domain roles.

This page outlines the principles and best practices for modeling these directional relationships, helping you maintain structural integrity and enhance the interpretability of your business architecture.

Passive domains

Passive and Active domain concepts

• Some domains are active — they initiate, drive, or own relationships (e.g. Strategy, Capability, Stakeholder).

• Others are passive — they are typically referenced, used, governed, or measured. These domains do not initiate relationships.

The following Orthogramic domains are considered passive:

These domains typically do not initiate relationships. For example:

• It’s more accurate to say a Capability uses Information than to say Information informs Capability.

• A Policy governs Information — not the other way around.

• A Performance metric is influenced by Initiatives, not vice versa.

Directionality

Cross domain relationships

In Orthogramic, cross domain relationships connect elements across different business architecture domains—for example, a Strategy influencing a Capability, or an Initiative delivering a Service. These relationships are directional, meaning they have a clear source and target. This direction helps you understand how one domain element affects or supports another.

To keep relationships meaningful and easy to interpret, Orthogramic follows a simple modelling approach:
Start from domains that drive change or define intent, and point towards those that describe supporting structures or results.

Common examples

• Strategy → Capability — A strategy defines the direction that capabilities must support.

• Capability → Value Stream — Capabilities enable specific value-creating activities.

• Initiative → Performance — Initiatives aim to influence performance measures.

• Stakeholder → Policy — A stakeholder is responsible for a policy.

Tip: think in terms of action

Ask yourself: “Which element is driving or shaping the other?”
If you're not sure, try framing the relationship as a sentence:

• “This strategy influences the capability.”

• “This initiative delivers the service.”

This helps ensure you’re modelling the direction correctly.

Relationship direction in visualisation

When exploring relationships in Insights:

• Arrows point from the source (driver) to the target (effect)

• This helps you follow the flow from strategic intent down to execution and results

Passive domains include

• Information

• Policy

• Performance

• Product

• Service

Correct examples

• Strategy → Capability

• Capability → Service

• Initiative → Performance

• Stakeholder → Policy

Incorrect examples

• Information → Capability : informs ❌

• Performance → Initiative : measured by ❌

• Policy → Stakeholder : constrains ❌

Reasoning

This ensures semantic clarity, avoids visual clutter, and supports reasoning engines that depend on clear relationship directionality.

Inter-domain relationships

Directionality does apply to inter-domain relationships, but the active/passive domain distinction used in cross-domain relationships must be interpreted differently in an inter-domain context.

Overview

Inter-domain relationships show how elements of different domains are related across organisational units (e.g. how a Capability in Unit A relies on a Service in Unit B).

These relationships retain directionality, such as:

• depends on

• is enabled by

• is governed by

• delivers to

However, in this context, directionality is more about organisational dependency and flow of responsibility than about whether the source domain is conceptually "active."

Active/Passive domain roles are less rigid here

In cross-domain relationships:

• Directionality is based on the structural logic of the metamodel.

• Only active domains (e.g. Strategy, Initiative) should initiate relationships.

In inter-domain relationships:

• A Capability (active) in Unit A might rely on a Service (passive) in Unit B → this direction is valid.

• But you could also show a Service in Unit B delivering value to a Capability in Unit A → and this too would be correct.

So while directionality is present, the active/passive rule is relaxed because:

• The organisational context adds nuance.

• The focus is on who depends on whom across units, not just structural domain logic.

Conclusion

• Directionality is essential in inter-domain relationships.

• Active/passive modelling constraints do not strictly apply — a passive domain element may be the source of an inter-unit relationship if it represents an organisational responsibility.