OWL ontology for the EDGY 23 Enterprise Design language by Intersection Group. Defines the four base elements (People, Outcome, Activity, Object), twelve facet and intersection elements, three relationship types (Link, Flow, Tree), and two label types (Tagging, Metrics). EDGY content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
Linked.Archi
Linked.Archi EDGY 23 Ontology
People achieve outcomes through their activities.
achieves outcome
A brand appears in a journey, manifesting in people's experiences over time.
appears in journey
An organisation authors a story, creating the narrative about itself.
authors story
An organisation builds a brand as a symbolic representation of itself.
builds brand
A story contextualises a purpose by providing narrative context for why the enterprise exists.
contextualises purpose
Content conveys a story by carrying the narrative through media and messages.
conveys story
A process creates a product through its activities.
creates product
A product embodies a brand, carrying its identity and promise to people.
embodies brand
A brand evokes a story, triggering narratives in people's minds.
evokes story
Content expresses purpose by communicating the enterprise's reason for being.
expresses purpose
A product features in a journey, appearing in people's experiences over time.
features in journey
An element influences another by passing objects.
flows to
An organisation has a capability it can perform.
has capability
Attaches a Metrics label to an enterprise element to add a measurable quantity or quality.
has metric
Attaches a Tagging label to an enterprise element to differentiate it by type, priority, or category.
has tag
A task is part of a journey, representing what people want to accomplish within their experience.
is part of journey
Activities lead to outcomes as their results.
leads to outcome
A meaningful structural association between two enterprise elements.
links to
An organisation makes a product for people's benefit.
makes product
Objects are needed to achieve outcomes.
needed to achieve
An element is part of another element of the same type.
ex:IdentityVerification edgy:partOf ex:CustomerOnboarding . # sub-capability is part of parent capability
ex:MobileApp edgy:partOf ex:BankingSuite . # product is part of product portfolio
ex:NorthEuropeTeam edgy:partOf ex:SalesDepartment . # team is part of department
part of
Expresses a hierarchical whole/part relationship. The subject (source) is the subordinate part and the object (target) is the superordinate whole. A tree is always between elements of the same type — e.g. a sub-capability is part of a capability, a team is part of a department. Direction: child → parent (the child "is part of" the parent). Use nesting in visual maps to show the same relationship spatially.
People and objects perform activities.
performs activity
An organisation performs a process as part of its operations.
performs process
A process requires an asset to operate.
requires asset (process)
An organisation pursues a purpose as its reason for existing.
pursues purpose
Navigates from a source element to a Flow qualified relationship resource.
qualified Flow
Navigates from a source element to a Link qualified relationship resource.
qualified Link
Navigates from a source element to a Tree qualified relationship resource.
qualified Tree
A process realises a capability by executing the activities needed to produce its outputs.
realises capability
A brand represents a purpose, standing for what the enterprise believes in.
represents purpose
A capability requires an asset to be performed.
requires asset
A product requires a capability to be created and delivered.
requires capability
A product serves a task by helping people accomplish what they want to get done.
serves task
A brand supports a task by creating expectations that help people accomplish their goals.
supports task
A journey traverses a channel, moving across interaction points over time.
traverses channel
A task uses a channel as the means of interaction with the enterprise.
uses channel
People use objects in their activities.
uses object
What is being done or going on in our enterprise or its ecosystem.
A car manufacturer describes the automated and manual activities needed to produce a car.
An inbound call centre describes how agents can handle customer calls.
Two partnering companies work together and decide each one's contribution as a set of activities.
Activity
An activity represents something happening that is relevant to our enterprise. It can be something done by people individually or collectively. An activity can also be used to refer to something that simply happens, without specifying who is doing what. Activities capture the behaviours and movements of our enterprise, enabling us to model the dynamic nature of our enterprise.
Abstract superclass for elements belonging to the Architecture facet — answering how the enterprise runs, what it is capable of, and what makes everything work together.
Architecture Element
An object we need and use to perform our capabilities.
Base element: asset is an object.
A public healthcare provider operates with hospital buildings, medical records, and planning systems.
A railroad maintenance company requires fuel and gravel, and operates power lines and tracks.
An air traffic control organisation runs applications and databases to track flights.
Asset
Enterprises need to develop, buy and manage a broad range of tangible or intangible assets (such as buildings, machines, raw materials, software applications, financial assets and know-how) to perform the capabilities needed to run their business. Buying assets from suppliers connects the enterprise to its supply chain.
Abstract superclass for the four generic base elements that describe what is happening in an enterprise and its ecosystem.
Base Element
Our name and what it stands for.
Base element: brand is an object. Intersection of Identity and Experience facets.
A label used by different companies to communicate a sustainability certification.
A product name used for sales on commercial markets and within franchising partnerships.
The name a consumer goods company uses to represent itself, protected as a trademark.
Brand
A brand is a symbolic representation that stands for our enterprise and its products. It is designed to communicate our identity, especially how we are different from others. It invokes a set of expectations in people about our enterprise and our products. Positive expectations about a brand pull people towards the products an enterprise offers, negative expectations push them away.
What we are able to do by orchestrating people and assets.
Base element: capability is an outcome.
A design studio excels in its digital product design practice, building upon research and prototyping capabilities.
A national government develops the capability to warn citizens about potential environmental dangers.
A technology company sets up a government relations capability to affect upcoming regulation.
Capability
Enterprises strive to achieve their purpose by creating products. To do so, they must design and realise their capabilities by orchestrating meaningful combinations of people and assets. Each capability produces well-defined outputs for internal or external business use. Capabilities guide the modularisation of our enterprise by defining boundaries around what belongs together.
The means people use to engage and interact with us.
Base element: channel is an object.
A tech company builds a virtual Metaverse presence to interact with their job candidates.
An airline uses an instant messenger app to communicate with their customers synchronously.
An insurance company operates physical stores to sell printed tickets to use their services.
Channel
Channels are the means of communication between people and the enterprise. They are where moments of interaction between people and the enterprise take place. They include media, devices, communication systems, or physical environments used to facilitate interactions.
What is being communicated to people.
Base element: content is an object.
A car manufacturer displays the latest models and their features on a website, including videos and animations.
A consultant develops a mission statement and a process dashboard available to employees on the intranet.
Content
Content refers to the information and data that is being communicated between and to people. Content always conveys messages and clues, both explicit and implicit, that people use to construct their perception of the enterprise's identity. It requires a medium to convey those underlying messages to its audiences. For an enterprise, content is a valuable asset, vital for its success.
Abstract superclass for all EDGY enterprise elements — the building blocks used to describe what an enterprise consists of.
Enterprise Element
Abstract superclass for EDGY label types used to differentiate or quantify elements.
Enterprise Label
Abstract superclass for all EDGY relationship types that connect enterprise elements.
Enterprise Relationship
Abstract superclass for elements belonging to the Experience facet — answering what role the enterprise plays in people's lives.
Experience Element
Abstract superclass for elements that describe an enterprise using a specific enterprise design facet (Identity, Architecture, or Experience).
Facet Element
A business pays another by transferring money.
A business process involves data passed from one information system to another.
A supply chain involves transferring raw materials and physical goods between locations.
Flow
An enterprise functions through the way its parts influence each other to produce an aggregated result no single part can produce alone. Understanding and improving the effectiveness and ease with which things flow through the enterprise and its elements helps it function efficiently and effectively.
Abstract superclass for elements belonging to the Identity facet — answering why the enterprise exists, who it is, and what matters to it.
Identity Element
Abstract superclass for elements that sit at the intersection of two facets (Organisation, Product, Brand).
Intersection Element
The events and activities people experience in their lives.
Base element: journey is an activity.
A new employee goes through a journey of signing the contract, onboarding activities, and meeting their team.
A traveller goes through a journey of making travel plans, booking tickets, and embarking on the actual trip.
Journey
A journey describes what a person does, feels, thinks, or otherwise experiences over time as they live a specific portion of their life, in particular when interacting with our enterprise. It is captured as a simplified sequential and chronological representation of activities and events people experience, and tasks they want to accomplish.
A meaningful structural association between two elements.
Link
A link expresses a structural relationship between two elements in terms that explain or illustrate the relevance of that relationship to the enterprise. EDGY provides twenty-four pre-defined types of links (core links) that enable co-designers from different disciplines to better communicate and connect their specialised designs. In addition, custom shortcut links can be defined to bypass the core model.
Used to add a quantity or quality to an element that can be measured or otherwise determined.
Metrics
Metrics add a quantity or quality to an element that can be measured or otherwise determined. Typically this is used to express information about the performance, importance or status of the respective element. Combined with a colour coding scheme, metrics can be used to display a heat map. EDGY suggests: Priority, Investment, Cost, Risk, Performance, Quality/fitness.
A structure that is relevant to the enterprise.
A broadcasting company provides a public website about food including recipes, food and famous chefs.
A hospital manages beds, drugs and equipment, patient medical records, and teams of doctors and nurses.
An airport handles infrastructure such as taxiways and buildings, as well as planes, passengers and flights.
Object
An object is a tangible or intangible multi-part structure such as a machine, building, application or data. Objects can have behaviour, such as performing automated activities, or support people that are doing activities. Objects consist of parts: objects that combine to form an object of a higher complexity and function.
A group of people working together.
Base element: organisation is an object. Intersection of Identity and Architecture facets.
A commercial company is structured into a hierarchy of roles and responsibilities.
An NGO defines volunteer roles and processes needed to direct the organisation.
Organisation
An organisation is a complex social structure. People form organisations to collaborate and co-create outcomes they cannot achieve alone without explicit agreements about membership, responsibilities and behavioural rules. Organisations are fractal: they are made up of nested structures that have similar attributes on each level. Organisations are complex adaptive systems displaying both designed and emergent attributes and behaviours.
A result or change that occurs within our enterprise or its ecosystem.
Double our market share in a country by the end of the following year.
Explore the potential outcomes of a physical infrastructure upgrade.
React to an important development in the labour market as an outcome of regulatory change.
Outcome
Outcomes are the results of activities. These can be intended results such as goals, objectives or more generally the purpose an enterprise strives to achieve. Outcomes can also be unintended. An outcome represents a state change we can observe in our own organisation, with our customers or co-creators, in our markets or ecosystem.
The individuals co-creating the enterprise or using products.
A manufacturing business makes goods for private household customers and relies on investors and suppliers.
An NGO works with volunteers to run campaigns and make their case to parliamentarians.
An open-source software company works remotely with thousands of independent developers.
People
People are individuals with an identity, motivation and intent, skills and expertise, background, story and personality. They have the unique ability to have ambitions, find meaning and purpose in the world, and share those with other people. The roles people play in an enterprise relate to the activities they are expected to be involved in.
A set of related activities our enterprise carries out.
Base element: process is an activity.
A car company has largely automated their production process.
A software company uses agile methods to manage their development process.
An insurance provider treats incoming claims in a structured fashion.
Process
Processes are the flows of activities needed for product creation. They transform a set of inputs into a set of products or intermediary outputs and consist of a set of activities performed in coordination. A process can be strictly structured or less structured. Well-designed processes lead to enterprises that operate efficiently and effectively.
What we make, offer and deliver for people's benefit.
Base element: product is an object. Intersection of Architecture and Experience facets.
A car manufacturer makes cars and offers them for leasing or buying with custom loans.
A law office offers advice, contract creation and legal representation as services.
A railway company offers different trains, tickets and discount subscriptions.
Product
Products are the result of our enterprise activity and encompass physical things manufactured and delivered, or services rendered to people. A product can be composed of any combination of physical goods and other tangible and intangible objects. A product helps people complete a task, and thereby adds value to their lives when used in the right context.
A reason why an enterprise exists and what people pursue and believe in.
Base element: purpose is an outcome.
A public hospital seeks to provide everyone with the care they require.
A technology company wants to make use of the latest innovations in engineering.
An enterprise makes the best doohickies in the world - that's all they focus on.
Purpose
An enterprise's purpose expresses what its people believe in, consider valuable, and are striving for, usually expressed as outcomes/goals the enterprise aspires to achieve. The purpose acts as a shared 'north star' people can use to find inspiration and motivation in, and align their activities with.
The way we make sense of our enterprise and communicate to people what it does.
Base element: story is an activity.
An enterprise has its roots in manual manufacturing before moving on to be a leader in automated production systems.
An enterprise in the food industry is all about sustainable and eco-friendly production.
Story
An enterprise story is a narrative with our co-creators as protagonists, the enterprise as the setting, the ecosystem as context, and the co-creators' activities as actions. Stories help us make sense of complex ideas, concepts and situations and share that sense with other people. Creating a story is a co-creative process, bringing together a group of stakeholders.
Used to differentiate elements based on a set of values.
Tagging
Tags capture characteristics that apply to multiple elements. They add information that helps to distinguish types of elements, to establish priorities or highlight elements that require a particular treatment. One element can have several tags applied to it.
What people want to achieve and get done.
Base element: task is an outcome.
A customer checks their insurance coverage before starting the procedure to file a claim.
A private investor compares the financial performance of various stocks.
An airline official looks up current delays to inform passengers waiting at the airport.
Task
People have numerous tasks they want to accomplish every day. Those tasks are about the outcomes people want to achieve, not the means to get there. Tasks can be seen as a stable expression of people's needs, motivations and intent. Achieving clarity on people's tasks offers our enterprise a chance to focus on people's most important needs and motivations.
Use: 1) Decompose an element into its smaller sub-elements. 2) Express that a sub-element is a part of its superior element. The constraint is that both source and target must be of the same element type (e.g. both Capability, both Organisation, both Product).
A brand portfolio is structured as a tree of corporate, product and special edition brands.
A capability decomposition is structured as a tree of sub-capabilities.
A product portfolio is structured as a tree of categories, products and components.
A purpose and goal portfolio is structured as a tree of strategic, tactical and operational outcomes.
An organisation is structured as a tree of departments, teams and roles.
Tree
A tree represents a hierarchical whole/part relationship between elements of the same type. Hierarchical relationships are based on degrees or levels of superordination and subordination, where the superordinate element represents a whole and subordinate elements represent its members or parts. In the qualified form, arch:source is the child (part) and arch:target is the parent (whole). The visual notation uses a filled diamond on the parent (target) end.