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Learning TOGAF ADM in 60 Mins

Want to have a quick overview of TOGAF Architecture Development Method? Jumpstart your TOGAF core knowledge in just 60 Mins with the Visual Paradigm TOGAF Quick Tour Videos:

  1. Introduction to TOGAF ADM: (Part 1) Preliminary Phase
  2. Introduction to TOGAF ADM (Part 4): Phase E Opportunities and Solutions
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How to Estimate User Stories?

Story estimating is definitely not a easy task. But Visual Paradigm has a very useful feature to help your team on this, called Affinity Estimation Technique.

Affinity Estimate 

  1. Estimate use stories in relative terms.
  2. Keep estimates manageable.
  3. Deal with spikes in early stage.

Visual Paradigm’s Affinity Table automate the affinity estimating process for you and at the time deal with the above important issues.

Why Visual Paradigm Affinity Table for User Stories Estimation?

  • streamlining the entire estimating process for your team
  • seamlessly integrated with story map and product backlog
  • Automatic calculate story point and days at the same time
  • provide traditional column based estimation or advanced matrix based estimation in switchable dual modes
  • help you to identify spikes and to be handled them in early stage

Learn More about Visual Paradigm Affinity Table Feature

Related Topics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How Many STEPS Wizards Available So Far? And Available in What Edition?

  1. There are five STEPS Wizards available in Visual  Paradigm at the moment. There will be more wizards to be made available in the Future.
  2. The criteria of a STEPS Wizard to be made available in what Edition(s) based the diagram type(s) used in that wizard is/are also the default diagram type(s) available in the edition(s)
  • For example: ArchiMate Diagram is only available in the Enterprise Edition, so if the STEPS Wizard includes the ArchiMate diagram, then it will only be available in Enterprise Edition

 

STEPS Wizard Objectives Compatible Editions
Use Case 2.0
  • Identify the goals to be achieved as use cases
  • Identify the specific ways to achieve these goals as use case stories
  • Partition the stories into suitably sized pieces of work, known as use case slices
  • Produce a release plan
  • Plan out development tasks to be conducted in implementing the use cases
Enterprise / Professional
Developing MVC Sequence Diagrams from CRUD Model
  • Identify business entities for problem domain using conceptual ERD
  • Identify business services required for the problem based in basic CRUD operations
  • Elaborate the business services into MVC multiple layers of usage scenarios using sequence diagrams
Enterprise / Professional
Develop CRUD Chart from DFD
  • Interrelate processes and data stores with CRUD operations (CREATE, READ, UPDATE, DELETE)
  • Visualize the CRUD operations in a matrix format for further analysis
Enterprise / Professional / Standard
Competitive Analysis with Radar Chart
  • Clearly displays the important categories
  • Clearly defines full performance in each category
  • Makes concentrations of strengths and deficiencies visible
  • Automatic transform data into tabular format for further actions and comments
Enterprise / Professional
Capability Maturity Assessment
  • Stock taking of capability of an enterprise in a holistic view
  • Visualize the capability level of an enterprise as a whole
  • Identify what areas of the enterprise are required to increase or optimize capability
  • Identify the architectural focus areas that will support the development of the architecture
Enterprise
Capability-Based Transformation Planning
  • Stock taking of capability of an enterprise in a holistic view
  • Identify the transformation strategy required to realize each of the capability
  • Identify what action(s) are required to perform during the transformation
Enterprise

 

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Use Case 2.0 For Agile Development

Visual Paradigm introduces STEPS – an fully automated process for agile development.

So what is STEPS anyway?

Seamless Techniques Expressed in Prescribed Steps (STEPS) is a powerful and groundbreaking feature for software development. Like a recipe that tells you how to cook a meal, STEPS are recipes that lead you through a series of well-defined steps for conducting a particular (reusable) analysis or modeling pattern for certain aspect of your development process. Your team can reuse or choose the appropriate Wizard in your project from the default set provided by Visual Paradigm.

Seamless transformation of data

Your work will be transformed automatically from one step to another. All the transformation is done behind-the-scene. You will get accurate result without any extra configuration and re-work.

Learn through STEPS

All the steps have instructions documented. The instructions do not just guide you through the completion of step but also provides you with tips and additional material in learning about the intent and rationale behind what you are doing.

Learn More About STEPS and Use Case 2.0

 

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Distinguish between the layers in ArchiMate using Notational Cues

In addition to the colors, other notational cues can be used to distinguish between the layers of the framework in ArchiMate. A letter ‘M’, ‘S’, ‘B’, ‘A’, ‘T’, ‘P’, or ‘I’ in the top-left corner of an element can be used to denote a Motivation, Strategy, Business, Application, Technology, Physical, or Implementation & Migration element, respectively.

An example of this notation is depicted in Example below:

Shape Convention in ArchiMate

The standard notation also uses a convention with the shape of the corners of its symbols for different element types, as follows:

•  Square corners are used to denote structure elements.

•  Round corners are used to denote behavior elements.

•  Diagonal corners are used to denote motivation elements.

Related Resources

https://archimate.visual-paradigm.com/

 

Use Case 2.0

Use Case 2.0 is a scalable and agile approach that uses use cases to capturing requirements and driving the incremental development of a system to fulfill them. It helps you understand how the system will be used and leading you through the development of an appropriate system to support the users.

In this STEPS Wizard, you will be guided to identify use cases, use case stories and use case slices following the Use Case 2.0 practice.

Objectives

This Use Case 2.0 STEPS Wizard helps you:

  • Identify the goals to be achieved as use cases
  • Identify the specific ways to achieve these goals as use case stories
  • Partition the stories into suitably sized pieces of work, known as use case slices
  • Produce a release plan
  • Plan out development tasks to be conducted in implementing the use cases

Main Steps

  1. Maintain a list of people who takes part or will take part in the project.
  2. Identify the target users of the system (i.e. actor) and the use cases.
  3. Identify use case stories for the use cases obtained from the previous step.
  4. Split the use cases into suitably sized slices.
  5. Decide the use case stories to be completed in each release.
  6. Decide the use case stories to be implemented in the next few weeks or month by assigning them into appropriate sprints.
  7. And finally, document the actions required to perform in completing the tasks generated from the user stories.
The figure above outlines the steps involved in performing Use Case 2.0. In this article we will walk you through the steps in detail.

Try it in Visual Paradigm

Before we continue, if you are using Visual Paradigm you can click the button below to import this tutorial into Visual Paradigm and perform the steps in the form of a wizard.

Open this Wizard in Visual Paradigm

Step 1: Form the project team

Maintain a list of people who takes part or will take part in the project. Be sure to include the people who are responsible for managing the use cases to be identified. If you are uncertain right now, you can leave it first and perform this steps later on.

To complete this step, you need to perform the actions below:

1.  Click on Participant at the bottom left of this screen.

2.  Add into the table the team members who will take part in the use case identification and management process. To do this, click on the New Participant (Insert) button on top of the table (See the red box in the image below), and select a member to add from the drop-down menu.

Notes:

- By selecting a non-project member, he/she will be added into this project.

- If you want to add a member that does not have an account yet, enter his name in the empty text box above the table and click Create New. Then, enter his/her email address. An invitation email will be sent to him/her for confirmation.

3.  Enter the role and responsibility of that member. Double-click on a cell to edit it. 

3.  Repeatedly add the other team members into the table. 

Step 2: Find actors and use cases

This step requires you to identify the target users of the system (i.e. actor) and the use cases, which are the goals that the target users wish to achieve by using the system.

Actors: The person or entities who will access the system to gain something (of value). You should name the role of these person (e.g. Customer, Student, and Teacher) and entities (CCTV System), NOT the names of individuals.

Use cases: A use case is a goal to be achieved by using a system. For example, a typical ATM system has use cases like withdraw cash, transfer cash and check balance. Mind that a use case is a goal, not a function. A single use case represents all the ways to achieve a particular goal. We will explore that in coming steps.

A possible way to find actors and use cases is to hold a workshop with your stakeholders. There is no need to identify all the use cases up front, just focus on those that can provide the stakeholders with the value they look for.

The tables below gives an example of actors and use cases of a Library Management System of a school.

Step 3: Identify use case stories

Use cases capture the goals to be achieved by using a system. To capture requirements and drive the incremental development of the system, tell the "stories" of the use cases.

A use case story describes a specific way of achieving a particular use case. Each use case story is defined by one of the following:

  • The basic flow that describes the simplest way of achieving the goal
  • An alternative path to achieve the goal
  • An exceptional path

The figure above illustrates the relationship between a use case and use case stories. A use case has at least one story that describes its basic flow, and other stories that describe the alternate and exception flows. The basic flow captures the most typical way to achieve the use case, while the alternative flows identify any other ways of using the system to achieve the goal, and any problems that could occur on the way to achieving the goal.

Note that you don't need to capture all of the stories up front. When you record the basic flow you will naturally think of the other ways of achieving the goal, and the problematic situations that may occur at each step. Just capture these as stories first. You can come back to creating more stories later as and when they are needed.

The table below provides some examples of use case stories.

Use Case Use Case Stories
Borrow Book
  • Borrow book with success (Basic Flow)
  • Maximum borrow record reached (Exceptional path)
  • Borrower owes fine (Exceptional path)
Return Book
  • Return book with success (Basic Flow)
  • Damaged book (Exceptional path)
  • Late return (Exceptional path)

In this step, you are required to identify use case stories for the use cases obtained from the previous step. This is done by editing an initial use case diagram we generated for you by including the use case stories as <<Extend>> use cases. Complete the items below to finish this step:

1.  A use case story is modeled as an <<Extend>> use case. Rename the <<Extend>> use cases we created for you. Add more <<Extend>> use cases as needed. Delete the ones not needed. Read the second tips below to learn how to create an <<Extend>> use case in detail.

Note: You do not need to model the basic flow of the use case as it is represented by the base use case.

2.  Touch-up the layout of the diagram. The figure below shows a use case diagram example for the Library Management System.

What is a Use Case Diagram?

A Use Case Diagram is a visual form of a use case model. In a Use Case Diagram the people (and other parties) that use the system are modeled as actors, while the ways that the system will be used to achieve goals are modeled as use cases. Such a visual model provides the context for discovering, sharing and understanding system’s requirements. It also provides an overview of all the things the system will do.

How to create an <<Extend>> use case?

Take the steps below to create an <<Extend>> use case.

1.  Place your mouse pointer over the use case.

2.  Press on the Resource Catalog button and drag it out.

3.  Release the mouse button at the place where you want the <<extend>> use case be created. Select Extend -> Use Case from Resource Catalog 

4.  Name the use case and press Enter to confirm. 

Step 4: Slice up the use cases

Most systems require a lot of work before they are ready for production use. They have many requirements with varying importance and priority, and most of which are dependent on other requirements being implemented before they can be satisfied. Because of this we need a way to divide the use cases into smaller pieces that allow us to plan and implement a system based on a set of appropriately sized, organized and ordered work items. This is the approach taken by Use-Case 2.0, where the use cases are split up into slices, and where the system itself is evolved slice by slice.

A use case may generate several slices covering all its functionality. Each slice contains one or more stories selected from a use case, forming a work item that is of value to the stakeholder. The figure below illustrates the relationship between use case, use case slice and use case stories.

Use case slice is the most important component of Use Case 2.0. It is as integral to Use-Case 2.0 as the use case itself. It is the slices that enable the use cases to be broken down into suitably sized pieces of work, driving the development of a system to fulfill them.

In this step, you are required to create slices for the use cases. The best way to find the right slices is to think about the stories captured. Each story is a good candidate slice. The table below shows several examples of how slices can be created based on stories.

Use Case Use Case Stories Use Case Slice
Borrow Book Borrow Book (Basic ) Borrow Book success
Borrow Book Max borrow record reached Borrow Book failed
Borrow Book Borrower owes fine Borrow Book failed

From the table, you can see that the Borrow Book use case is split into two slices - Borrow book success and Borrow book failed. It is acceptable that a slice contains one story, or multiple stories. In fact, the slicing mechanism is very flexible. It enables you to create slices as big or small as you need to drive your development. However, you should do the slicing with your stakeholders to ensure that all the slices created are value delivered. Don't slice up all the use cases at once. Just identify enough slices to meet the immediate needs of the team.

Now, complete the items below to finish this step.

1.  Review the use case stories identified, use case by use case.

2.  For each use case story, assign it to a slice. You can create a new slice or select an existing slices to add the use case story into. To create a slice, toggle the drop-down menu in the Use Case Slice cell, enter the name of the slice in the text box and click Create New

To assign a use case story into a slice, simply select the slice from the drop-down menu.

3.  Assess the complexity of each use case story.

4.  Select a team member as the responsibility person of the use case story.

The table below gives an example of how a use cases of the Library Management System can be sliced up into slices.

Step 5: Perform release planning

Software systems evolve through a series of releases. The releases themselves are often not produced in one go, but are evolved through a series of increments. In the world of agile, we call the increments 'sprints'. In this and the next step, you will start planning your development work by assigning the use case stories into appropriate releases and sprints. You are going to work in a user story map transformed from the use case, use case slices and stories identified. Before we continue, let's take a look at how a user story map looks like.

The various Use Case 2.0 elements are transformed into different story map elements. The mapping is as show below.

This step requires you to establish a backlog of the user stories (i.e. use case stories) left to implement. Complete the items below to finish the step. Make sure the opinions from stakeholders are considered throughout the whole process, or you simply perform this step with them.

1.  Set up the releases of the project by creating the release compartments, giving each release a meaningful name (e.g. its version number) and the release date.

2.  Drag the user stories into the release compartments.

The figure below shows how use case stories can be managed in a user story map.

Step 6: Perform sprint planning

Decide the use case stories to be implemented in the next few weeks or month. This is done by adding those user stories into a logical, time-boxed iteration, known as a sprint.

A sprint usually last for around two weeks to one month. The development team is expected to complete all the use case stories within the sprint by the end date of the sprint, as agreed by all parties in sprint planning. A project has multiple sprints and, by the end of each sprint, a semi-executable product will be delivered for the end user to test or even to use in production.

Complete the table by assigning use case stories into sprints. You don't have to assign all use case stories at once. Just focus on the user stories to be delivered in the first or first two sprints first. You can perform the assignment for the remaining stories later on, base on the progress, the capability of the team and user's latest expectation. To create a slice, toggle the drop-down menu in the Sprint cell, enter the name of the sprint in the text box and click Create New. To assign a use case story into a sprint, simply select the sprint from the drop-down menu.

Step 7: Detail the development tasks

The sprints are set up and your team is now ready to design, code, perform unit test, and integrate the software components needed to implement the stories in sprint.

A set of tasks have been generated in Tasifier, the task management tool, for each of the stories in the sprint and assigned to the team members who are set responsible to the stories. Members can view the tasks in Tasifier and start to manage the development activities associated with the stories. In this step, you are required to detail the tasks by including the things that the members have to achieve under the tasks.

Let's take a look at the interface of Tasifier and see the actions that you have to perform under this step. When you open Tasifier under this step, you will see something like:

Each use case story identified results in the generation of a task in Tasifier. The tasks are automatically assigned to the team members who are set responsible to the stories. Members can access the tasks under the New section of Tasifier. They can click on a task to view and edit its details.

Note that only the tasks in the first sprint are presented. The tasks in subsequent sprints will only be presented when the start date is passed. Yet, you can always read and detail these tasks. We will talk about it in more detail.

You can see a tag attached to each task (e.g. "Borrow book success" in the image below). The tag is actually the use case slice the story (i.e. task) belonging to. If you want to check the stories under a particular use case slice, click on the tag. This will open a page that lists the tasks created from the stories under that slice.

On the left of Tasifier, you can see a list of 'Task Pools', which are the sprints set up in the previous step. You can click on a sprint to view the tasks required to complete under that sprint.

Based on the discussions with stakeholders and among the team, document the actions required to perform in completing each task.

A story-level task could be too big to manage. You can create sub-tasks in managing the actual development activities. To do this, click on the Sub-tasks button, and then enter the sub-tasks one by one.

Ready to try?

Click the button below to import this tutorial into Visual Paradigm and start developing MVC Sequence Diagrams for your system. The wizard not only provides the steps and guidance but also automates the transition of data among steps.

Open this Wizard in Visual Paradigm
Import into your Project

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Capability Based Transformation Planning

Before embarking upon a detailed Architecture Definition or launch for a business initiative, it is valuable to understand the future-state capabilities to achieve and the change required to implement the strategic and operational changes envisages.

In this STEPS Wizard, you will be guided to identify the capabilities and to develop a transformation plan in realizing the changes.

Objectives

This Capability Assessment can help you to understand and identify:

  • Stock taking of capability of an enterprise in a holistic view
  • Identify the transformation strategy required to realize each of the capability
  • Identify what action(s) are required to perform during the transformation

Main Steps

  • In this STEPS Wizard, you will be guided to identify the capabilities to achieve and how to realize it.
  • You will start by developing a capability map that presents the future-state capabilities. Then, identify the transformation strategy for each of the capabilities and presents the result in a color-coded heat map.
  • Finally, describe transformation plan to apply in reaching the target state.
The figure above outlines the steps involved in this Wizard. In this article we will walk you through the steps in detail.

Try it in Visual Paradigm

Before we continue, if you are using Visual Paradigm you can click the button below to import this tutorial into Visual Paradigm and perform the steps in the form of a wizard.

Open this Wizard in Visual Paradigm

Step 1: Develop target capability map

Create a capability map that presents the future-state capabilities. A capability map typically shows one or two levels of capabilities across the entire enterprise. Although it is possible to expand capabilities to more levels, especially when the business model is complex, doing so may make the map over complex and hard to comprehend. So we recommend a two level decomposition here.

The figure below shows a capability map example.

Step 2: Produce a target capability heat map

During a transformation, new capabilities will be invented, existing capabilities may be changed, made deprecated or kept unchanged. This steps require you to identify the transformation strategy for each of the capabilities and presents the result in a color-coded heat map. You need to use the Color Legend (bottom right of diagram) to associate each capability on the map to a color code that represents a specific strategy (e.g. no Change, To be Optimized, To be Removed, etc).

The steps below shows you how to use Color Legend to set the transformation strategy for a capability.

 1.  For each of the capabilities identified, determine its transformation strategy.

 2.  Select the type from the Color Legend at the bottom right of the diagram.

 3.  Click on the capability to apply. The capability should then be colorized following your selection. If you want to update your choice, perform step 2 again.

 4.  Repeat steps 1 to 3 on the other capabilities.

Tips:

What is a Capability Heat Map?

First of all, let's agree on the definition of what is a capability map. Capability map is a structured overview of capabilities within a problem space (e.g. IT, business, enterprise, etc). A capability map presents the logical grouping, de-composition and inter-relationships among capabilities, allowing readers to identify not just the capabilities of a business but also the way how they are collaborated in supporting the operation. A capability heat map (or capability heatmap) is where the capabilities contained in the map are colored based on a specific attribute. In this STEPS wizard, we use heat map to represent the transformation strategy of capabilities.

Step 3: Describe how the target capabilities can be realized

Describe the transformation plan for each capability in detail. For example, if it’s expected that a capability has To be Extended in the previous step, what activities will be performed in extending the capabilities? If a capability has To be Removed, what activities will be performed for removal? Any measures will be taken to mitigate the potential impacts that will arise?

The figure below gives an example of how to describe transformation plan.

Ready to try?

Click the button below to import this tutorial into Visual Paradigm and start developing MVC Sequence Diagrams for your system. The wizard not only provides the steps and guidance but also automates the transition of data among steps.

Open this Wizard in Visual Paradigm
Import into your Project

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Capability Maturity Assessment

Before embarking upon a detailed Architecture Definition or launch for a business initiative, it is valuable to understand the baseline and target capability level of the enterprise.

In this STEPS Wizard, you will be guided to identify the maturity gap of capabilities between the current and target business state.

Objectives

This Capability Assessment can help you to understand and identify:

  • Stock taking of capability of an enterprise in a holistic view
  • Visualize the capability level of an enterprise as a whole
  • Identify what areas of the enterprise are required to increase or optimize capability
  • Identify the architectural focus areas that will support the desired development of the enterprise

Main Steps

  • You will first create a capability map that presents the future-state capabilities.
  • Then, assess the current and target maturity level of the capabilities;
  • And finally, study the gap and state how the target capability states can be accomplished.
The figure above outlines the steps involved in identifying capability gap. In this article we will walk you through the steps in detail.

Try it in Visual Paradigm

Before we continue, if you are using Visual Paradigm you can click the button below to import this tutorial into Visual Paradigm and perform the steps in the form of a wizard.

Open this Wizard in Visual Paradigm

Step 1: Develop baseline capability map

Create a structured overview of the capabilities as-is by developing a baseline capability map. A capability map typically shows one or two levels of capabilities across the entire enterprise. Although it is possible to expand capabilities to more levels, especially when the business model is complex, doing so may make the map over complex and hard to comprehend. So we recommend a two level decomposition here.

The figure below shows a capability map example.

Step 2: Develop a baseline capability heat map

Produce a color-coded heat map that presents the maturity of the capabilities for the CURRENT business state. You need to use the Color Legend feature to indicate the level of maturity for each of the capabilities on the map. There are five color code to select from the legend, each represents a unique level of maturity a capability stands, scaled from 1 to 5, and with 5 represents a highly available capability.

The steps below shows you how to use Color Legend to set the maturity level of a capability.

 1.  For each of the capabilities identified, determine its maturity level.

 2.  Select the type from the Color Legend at the bottom right of the diagram.

 3.  Click on the capability to apply. The capability should then be colorized following your selection. If you want to update your choice, perform step 2 again.

 4.  Repeat steps 1 to 3 on the other capabilities.

The figure below shows an example of a baseline capability heat map.

Tips:

What is a Capability Heat Map?

First of all, let's agree on the definition of what is a capability map. Capability map is a structured overview of capabilities within a problem space (e.g. IT, business, enterprise, etc). A capability map presents the logical grouping, de-composition and inter-relationships among capabilities, allowing readers to identify not just the capabilities of a business but also the way how they are collaborated in supporting the operation. A capability heat map (or capability heatmap) is where the capabilities contained in the map are colored based on a specific attribute. In this STEPS wizard, we use heat map to represent the maturity level of capabilities.

Step 3: Develop a target capability heat map

Determine the maturity level to achieve for the identified capabilities. Again, for each capability, select the level of maturity to achieve, scaled from 0 to 5. Assign a level of 0 to capabilities that will be deprecated after a successful business transformation. Do NOT delete them, as we want to contrast the entire set of the baseline capabilities (including the one going to be deleted) against with the target capabilities

The figure below gives an example of the target capability heat map. Comparing to the baseline capability heat map, some of the maturity level of capabilities are changed (e.g. ‘Surgery’), and new capabilities are introduced (e.g. ‘Digital Health’). To make comparison easier, we indicate ‘0’ as the maturity level for a capability to be removed, instead of removing the capability from the map.

Step 4: Review and describe the maturity gaps

The maturity delta between the current and target state capabilities are identified from the capability maturity model. Positive deltas imply capabilities that require strengthening or be invented (for capabilities that are absent right now), while negative deltas imply capabilities that require downgrading or be removed from the business.

Now, study the capabilities, their current and target maturity levels, and maturity delta. Then, state how the target capability states can be accomplished. For example, if it’s expected that a capability has to reach a higher maturity level, what activities need to be performed to realize this? If a capability will be made deprecated, what measures will be taken to mitigate the potential impacts that will arise?

The figure below shows how maturity gaps can be rationalized.

Ready to try?

Click the button below to import this tutorial into Visual Paradigm and start developing MVC Sequence Diagrams for your system. The wizard not only provides the steps and guidance but also automates the transition of data among steps.

Open this Wizard in Visual Paradigm
Import into your Project

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Competitive Analysis with Radar Chart

Competitive analysis is the process to identify and evaluate your competitors' strengths and weaknesses relative to those of your own product or service. The evaluation should give you a better understand of you and your competitors, which helps you position your company better to play up your strengths and their weaknesses.

Radar chart is a graphical way to compare data by displaying data in a "web-like" form looking like spider web. The radar chart is a graphical method of displaying data in the form of a two-dimensional chart of three or more variables represented on axes starting from the same point.

Radar charts are particularly useful when examining several factors that are related to one item, thus, not only you can apply this Wizard for performing competitor analysis, but also many other strategic analysis such as, capability analysis, as-is / to-be analysis and etc.

Objectives

  • Clearly displays the important categories
  • Clearly defines full performance in each category.
  • Makes concentrations of strengths and deficiencies visible.
  • Automatic transform data in to well organized tabular format for further actions and comments.

Main Steps

  1. In this STEPS Wizard, you are required to develop a radar chart to identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of your company and your competitors in the various performance criteria.
  2. After that, you have to study the gaps between you and your competitors, justify the gaps and suggest improvement plans.

The figure above outlines the steps involved in performing competitive analysis with radar chart. In this article we will walk you through the steps in detail.

Try it in Visual Paradigm

Before we continue, if you are using Visual Paradigm you can click the button below to import this tutorial into Visual Paradigm and perform the steps in the form of a wizard.

Open this Wizard in Visual Paradigm

Step 1: Develop a radar chart for competitive analysis

In this step, you are required to develop a radar chart to identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of your company and your competitors in the various performance criteria. Complete the items below to finish this step:

  1. Identify your main competitors (Try to restrict the pool to not more than 5 competitors. Having too many competitors will result in a radar chart that is over-complex and hard to read and study)
  2. Identify the criteria that you will use to determine how good each company is. Cost, revenue and customer satisfaction are typical examples of criteria.
  3. Create a radar chart by adding the competitors and criteria into the chart. Give a score for each criteria for each company being evaluated, on a scale of 0 to 100.

The steps below shows you how to develop a radar chart:

1. List your company and your competitors as stages. To rename a stage, double click and enter a new name. To create a stage, right click on the 'stage box' and select Add Stage... from the popup menu. If you want to change the color of line to appear in the chart, right click on the color label and choose Select Color... from the popup menu to make a color selection.

2. List the criteria to compare as variables. To insert a new criteria, right click on the chart and select Add Variable from the popup menu. To move a criteria, right click on it and select Move Anticlockwise or Move Clockwise from the popup menu.

3. Drag on the nodes of the rings in the radar chart to adjust the scores of your company and the competitors.
4. You can optionally group the criteria into process areas. For example, the criteria Food Cost, Beverage Cost and Labor Cost are all cost items. To group them visually, I can add them into a process area called Cost Items. To add a process area, right click on the 'process area box' and select Add Process Area... from the popup menu. Then, select the criteria to add into the process area and confirm.

The result should look like this:

Step 2: Analyze the gap between you and your competitors

The difference between you and your competitors, known as gaps, are identified from the radar chart. In this step, you are required to comment on the gaps. Here are some questions that may help you in writing a comment:

  • If you are falling behind your competitor,
    • Why is it happening? Is it known and expected?
    • Will there be any mitigation / rectification activities? What will happen if such activities are (not) going to be performed?
  • If you beat your competitors,
    • Why is it happening?
    • Is the advantage sustainable?
    • If not, will you take any action to improve it?
  • Aside from the analysis of gaps, are there any business opportunities that you can identify during the evaluation?

The figure below shows you an example of table that contains the result of analysis and comments to the gap.

Ready to try?

Click the button below to import this tutorial into Visual Paradigm and start developing MVC Sequence Diagrams for your system. The wizard not only provides the steps and guidance but also automates the transition of data among steps.

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