How to create a DOMA Based digital Operating Model

A DOMA (digital operating model atom) Based Operating Model provides a way to encapsulate the entire business and provide a structure that makes it navigable for any employee. It is formed by 3 elements, Processes, Organizational roles and Performance measures which need to be appropriately aligned and integrated from the bottom up - at a fundamental level - to ensure cohesion.

To start building a DOMA Based Operating Model, the strategic context against which the Operating Model must deliver needs to be established with mutual agreement of what success looks like. The full context should include items such as the Vision and Mission, Products and Markets, Goals and Strategies.​ Once the Operating Model is in place, a business will have improved capabilities and many constraints to growth will be eliminated, providing a new opportunity to revisit this strategic context.

Next, it is important to gain agreement at a high level on the desired operational process flow that will act as a beginning skeleton for the Operating Model development process. To do this, the leaders and stakeholders of the company need to agree on the end-to-end high level processes for the main business value stream from opportunity to product delivery. This needs to be articulated by the business in its own words. Since a major purpose of an Operating Model is to have a common platform for the entire company, creating a common agreed upon set of terms and definitions is critical.

Building out the entire Operating Model all at once is not generally feasible, so the third step begins with a determination of the focus areas to start on and then creating the model content for that area. Typically, the initial focus areas will represent significant pain points and/or opportunities for the business. Starting with the initial focus areas, the ideal process pathways are defined within the business piece by piece.​ The responsibilities and metrics for each process step are also assigned. Pathways should be defined only to the level of detail that delivers the desired outcome, e.g., instruction level is not required in every case.​  

The final step involves weaving the content together as it develops into a model structure in order to ensure cohesiveness. The DOMA model is created as each three-dimensional DOMA node is defined, as are the linkages between nodes. ​Each DOMA can also have other information tagged to it to define the nature of that DOMA valuable for future analyses, e.g., potential for automation or AI. The DOMA Based Operating Model is captured in an Operating Model Library which is a core Operating Model Asset of the business. It stores all the relevant parts of the business on a multi-dimensional basis (processes, responsibilities, metrics) and integrates all the elements with all inter-linkages made explicit. It is a tangible business asset which, when "wired" into the management processes at all levels, becomes a Business Engine that performance can be visualized and managed against in ways understandable by and accessible to all employees. ​