A level in the framework

Objects

A named area within a core — Finance, Brand Positioning, Target Audience. Around fifty across the whole framework.

The concept

What a object is

Objects are the level most people actually work at. They are recognisable as subjects in their own right: you can hold a meeting about the value proposition, assign someone to the content calendar, or find a book about brand positioning.

They are also the level where the framework connects to everything else. The established models — Porter, the Business Model Canvas, the Balanced Scorecard — attach to objects rather than to cores, because objects are specific enough to instrument.

Telling it apart

Where the level begins and ends

Above against cores

A core is a domain; an object is a subject within it. Finance is an object because it is one recognisable area, not a collection of unrelated ones.

Below against modules

An object contains modules. Budgeting is not an object — it is one of several things Finance covers, alongside forecasting and cash flow.

The test

Does it belong here?

  1. Would someone recognise it as a subject?

    Objects have names people already use. If you had to invent the term, it probably belongs a level down.

  2. Could you name a model for it?

    Most objects have at least one established instrument attached to them. That is a good sign it is a real subject rather than a subdivision.

In the framework

Examples

  • Purpose
  • Value Proposition
  • Brand Positioning
  • Target Audience
  • KPI management
  • Year Wheel

Around fifty objects describe a complete business. That number is what makes the field finite, and therefore learnable.

The library

Every object in the framework

50 objects in all. Objects with their own page are linked; the rest are named but not yet written.

Business Core12

Market Core8