Assessing organizational capabilities from a grassroots level

The classic big picture view of the organizational capabilities requires a certain vantage point from where the picture is drawn. It requires visibility into some of the esoteric areas within an organization. Quite often the big picture is either fuzzy or incomplete. On top of that there are solutions in progress that require a good understanding of the capabilities of the organization.

In my view, one way to work around such situations is by individual initiative and commitment. If the capability domains are known, try striking a conversation with the key players within those domains. You will be surprised at the quality of information that comes out. Sometimes these conversations help dispel some well-known myths and help establish certain lesser-known facts. This is also a good starting point to identify the missing pieces from the big picture. Conversation-chains help discover other key capability domains. Finally, cross referencing such information obtained from the different capability domains promotes a better understanding of what we seek.