We've been posed the question in our organisation: 'what are we seeing as emergent problems' that are giving rise to 'noise around the operating model'. This has led to several reviews gathering steam.
I think before we set off on different tracks we should work from a common understanding of what an 'operating model' is and even better what our current operating model is. This is important because there are several competing views around conceptualizing an 'operating model' and we don't have a single model used consistently in our organisation. So identifying 'noise' could mean we were hearing completely different things and wouldn't be able to agree which to pay attention to.
Additionally, there is further confusion around related terms and relationships. For example: is a business model the same as an operating model? Is a target operating model different from either of these? Where do business capabilities fit? How is organisation design linked to any of these?
I'm going to attempt an explanation of the different terms. I've presented them in what looks like an ordered sequence of steps to take. In reality each is inter-related with the other and if you are an established enterprise you could 'start' at any one of the steps as you already have at least an implicit business model, a strategy, an operating model, and an organisation design. Making these explicit, if they aren't, enables you to see where to do things differently in the future which case you are heading towards a 'target operating model'.