Strategic response model

Introduction

The Strategic Response Model (SRM) allows organisations to capture and understand how internal or external triggers lead to deliberate, structured responses across the business. It provides traceability between cause and effect—connecting performance insights, regulatory changes, stakeholder demands, and other drivers with the actions taken to realign business architecture domains.

This model supports continuous strategic alignment by documenting why a change occurred, how it was rationalised, and what was impacted—across strategies, capabilities, initiatives, policy, and organisational units.

Purpose

The SRM strengthens strategic governance by ensuring that:

• Business responses are traceable to defined triggers

• Rationales are explicitly captured and consistently structured

• Impact across domains and organisational units is recorded

• Organisational learning and auditability are enhanced

Structure

Each Strategic Response includes:

• A trigger: drawn from the shared trigger catalogue

• 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

Rationale object

Each response includes a rationale object that captures the justification for action. It replaces previous references to rationaleId and allows richer traceability and reasoning.

Trigger catalogue

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.

See: Trigger catalogue

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). These include:

• Owning: responsible for executing or delivering the response

• Providing: delivers resources or services into the response

• Utilising: benefits directly from the response outcome

• Consuming: depends on updated processes or data

• Dependent: cannot proceed without the change

• Custodian: maintains the associated processes or information

• Governed by: subject to new or modified policies

• Supported by: indirectly enhanced by the outcome without direct contribution

Each unit listed includes a description of how it is impacted, ensuring traceability to structure and accountability.

Example

Trigger: Regulation 10.15/F—Mandatory Near Miss Reporting
Rationale:

{
  "rationaleTitle": "Compliance with Regulation 10.15/F",
  "description": "Federal regulation mandates improved near-miss reporting. The goal is to enable predictive analytics to reduce preventable incidents.",
  "driverType": "Regulatory",
  "sourceDocument": "FRA Bulletin 2025/04",
  "relatedKPIs": ["Near Miss Capture Rate", "Incident Prevention Rate"],
  "priorityLevel": "High"
}

Affected domains: Policy, Capabilities, Performance
Impacted units:

• Track Safety Division – Owning

• Risk & Compliance – Custodian

• Regional Safety Teams – Supported by

Response actions:

• Define new reporting protocols

• Train field inspectors

• Deploy incident management tool enhancements

Expected outcome:

• 80% near-miss reporting coverage within 12 months

• Reduction in preventable incidents by 20% by end of 2026What is a Trigger?

Triggers

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)

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.

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.

Relationship with Rationales

Rationales play an important role in classifying and organising strategic responses. Ensure that the trigger catalogue—which lists common environmental or operational triggers prompting strategic responses—is up to date. Reference to the trigger catalogue 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.

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 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 or driver"
},
"triggerType": {
"type": "string",
"description": "The category of trigger",
"enum": ["Regulatory", "Market", "Risk", "Performance Insight", "Stakeholder Demand", "Technology Shift", "Other"]
},
"rationale": {
"type": "object",
"description": "Structured rationale that justifies the Strategic Response",
"properties": {
"rationaleTitle": {
"type": "string",
"description": "A short name for the rationale"
},
"description": {
"type": "string",
"description": "A detailed explanation of the reasoning behind the response"
},
"driverType": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Category of driver for the rationale",
"enum": ["Regulatory", "Risk", "Market", "Insight", "Stakeholder", "Technology", "Compliance", "Other"]
},
"sourceDocument": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Document or source that prompted this rationale"
},
"relatedKPIs": {
"type": "array",
"description": "List of KPIs that this response intends to influence",
"items": {
"type": "string"
}
},
"priorityLevel": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Urgency or criticality of the rationale",
"enum": ["High", "Medium", "Low"]
}
},
"required": ["rationaleTitle", "description", "driverType"]
},
"affectedDomains": {
"type": "array",
"description": "Business architecture domains impacted by the response",
"items": {
"type": "string",
"enum": ["Strategy", "Capabilities", "Initiatives", "Policy", "Performance", "Services", "Information", "Value Stream"]
}
},
"impactedUnits": {
"type": "array",
"description": "Organisation units impacted by the response",
"items": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"orgUnitTitle": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Name of the impacted organisation unit"
},
"relationshipRole": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Role played by the unit in relation to this response",
"enum": [
"Owning",
"Providing",
"Utilising",
"Consuming",
"Dependent",
"Custodian",
"Governed by",
"Supported by"
]
},
"impactDescription": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Narrative 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 benefits or changes resulting from this response"
},
"performanceImplications": {
"type": "string",
"description": "How the response affects KPIs or performance tracking"
}
},
"required": ["responseTitle", "description", "triggerId", "triggerType", "rationale", "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.

Trigger JSON Schema

{
"$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
"$id": "https://orthogramic.org/schema/trigger.json",
"title": "trigger",
"type": "object",
"required": ["triggerID", "label", "category"],
"properties": {
"triggerID": {
"type": "string",
"format": "uuid",
"description": "Unique identifier for the trigger"
},
"label": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Short, human-readable name of the trigger"
},
"category": {
"type": "string",
"enum": [
"Regulatory or compliance",
"Technological change",
"Environmental & safety",
"Operational transformation",
"Strategic re-alignment",
"Customer & stakeholder",
"Workforce & skills",
"Performance response",
"Political or social",
"Innovation-led opportunity"
],
"description": "Classification of trigger context"
},
"description": {
"type": "string",
"description": "Expanded explanation of the trigger’s relevance"
},
"examplestrategicResponseModels": {
"type": "array",
"items": {
"type": "string",
"format": "uuid"
},
"description": "Optional references to related strategicResponseModel artefacts"
}
}
}