Diagnose & Map method guide
Competence Map
Competence Map connects resources, routines, capabilities, competences and customer benefits.
Beginner-friendly guide · 4 min read
What Competence Map does
Competence Map connects resources, routines, capabilities, competences and customer benefits.
A competence map explains how organisational abilities create value. It connects visible customer benefits to competences, capabilities, routines and resources beneath them.
This layered view helps teams move beyond vague statements such as “we are good at innovation”. It shows which combinations of know-how, process, technology, relationships and assets make a repeatable outcome possible.
Core-competence and resource-based strategy emphasise bundles of skills, resources and organisational support rather than isolated assets. Mapping their relationships helps teams connect internal capability to strategic value.[1][2]
Read from the foundation upwards, then test whether every connection is credible.
- 1Resources
- 2Routines
- 3Capabilities
- 4Competences
- 5Customer benefits
InnovationFlow explanatory schematic, synthesised from the method sources[1][2].
Understand the method
The parts in plain language
Competences and capabilities
Competences combine several organisational abilities, while capabilities describe repeatable things the organisation can do. Use consistent definitions within the team.[1][2]
Illustrative example
Industrial energy optimisation depends on diagnostic modelling, system integration and change support.
Routines and resources
Show the people, data, tools, relationships, processes and knowledge that enable the capability. These are often where practical gaps appear.[1][2]
Illustrative example
A diagnostic capability relies on field data, domain experts, model governance and a repeatable site-assessment process.
When to use it
- When a strategy depends on capabilities that are poorly defined.
- Before defensibility, maturity, sourcing or capability investment decisions.
A practical workflow
- 1
Define the customer benefit or strategic outcome in scope.
- 2
Map enabling competences, capabilities, routines and resources.
- 3
Connect dependencies and assess current strength.
- 4
Promote important items into defensibility, maturity, sourcing or roadmap work.
Fictional worked example
Example: reliable remote diagnostics
This example is illustrative rather than a reported case. A service business maps the abilities behind faster fault resolution.
Observation:Customers reduce unplanned downtime.
Implication:Define a measurable outcome, not a generic service claim.
Observation:The firm can detect and classify emerging faults.
Implication:Link analytical performance to field response.
Observation:Data quality varies across installed equipment.
Implication:Prioritise instrumentation and data-governance gaps.
From analysis to decision
How to interpret the result
- 1Challenge unsupported links between layers.
- 2Identify capabilities that enable several benefits.
- 3Move important gaps into defensibility, sourcing, maturity or roadmap analysis.
The interpretation guidance is an InnovationFlow synthesis of[1][2].
What a useful output looks like
Common pitfalls
- Avoid labelling every activity a core competence.
- Describe capabilities as repeatable organisational abilities, not aspirations.
References and method basis
- [1]Prahalad, C.K. and Hamel, G. (1990). The Core Competence of the Corporation. Harvard Business Review, 68(3), 79-91. Source ↗Original method source
- [2]Barney, J. (1991). Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99-120. Source ↗Peer-reviewed research
This guide synthesises the named sources into practical questions for strategy and innovation work. It does not claim that using a tool by itself produces a successful decision.