Business Context Modeling
The other half of Cisely: who you serve, what they are reaching for, what you promise them, and how you know the promise was kept. A linked graph of intent rather than four documents that do not know about each other — so "why are we building this?" is answerable by following a link rather than by asking someone who was there.
- The two halvesCisely holds two models of the same business, and most of what makes a change correct lives in the first one. | What it holds | Outlives | ---|---|---| The business context | who you serve, what they…
- Mission and beliefsThese are the roots. Everything on the response side grows from the mission; the alignment between the two sides is measured at the beliefs.
- Personas and stakeholdersThree concepts that most models collapse into one, and separating them is what makes the rest of this tier work. | | ---|---| Persona | who someone is — an invariant identity | Operating context |…
- Goals and expectationsThis is the central move of the whole model, and it is one distinction: A goal is what someone is reaching for. An expectation is the measurable version of it. Goals are never measured directly.…
- Strategy and initiativesThe response side: what the business has decided to do about the demand, what forces it must answer to, and the bets that carry it out.
- MetricsA metric is a measure of how well intent is being met. It is what closes the loop — without one, every other node in this model is an assertion.
- Products, journeys & storiesThe tier where intent becomes buildable. This is where the business context meets the software.
- Working the modelHow to build this up from nothing, keep it honest, and get value from it early.