What’s the difference between a dynamic/process model and a static/capability model?

More conventional process oriented business models capture a defined sequence of related or ‘tightly coupled’ actions that are followed in response to some particular business event or to execute a pre-specified business action such as onboarding a customer. The process is defined as a “dynamic” representation because it models the resulting flow of activity each time the event occurs or the action is executed. The problem with using this kind of representation of business behavior to define a standard is somewhat surprisingly its flexibility. A process model needs to capture the potentially wide range of possible variations in the sequence and the rules/thresholds for including actions when the same business event is modelled in different enterprises. As a result process/dynamic models can only be used effectively to establish standard designs for the most predictable/commodity type of activities.

BIAN Service Domains are modelled using a capability based approach where a Service Domain defines the fixed or enduring capacity to perform some kind of function that can be invoked as needed when some business event occurs. That same capability may be invoked by many different business events as appropriate. An analogy is the model views of a city – the dynamic process view defines a specific journey or ‘day-in-the-life’ of an inhabitant travelling through the city, the static capability view defines the buildings and facilities making up the city that can support any possible day-in-the-life behavior.