Originally written in French. Translated by AI — the meaning has been preserved, not the prose.
Short definition
The level of classification of customer feedback at which the customer expresses what the product should make possible: configuring alerts, managing access rights, consolidating a history, automating an assignment, connecting several objects to one another.
Full definition
In the ordinary vocabulary of product architecture, a capability is what a system can do, described independently of its implementation and its interface — a stable layer of description beneath features that change.
In the classification of customer feedback worked on here, the term designates the intermediate tier: you are no longer at the level of the business objective, and not yet at the level of a located irritant. The feedback is already phrased in solution vocabulary — it says what the tool must make possible — but it designates no screen, no button, no journey.
A capability is distinguished from a feature by its grain and its duration: "manage access rights" is a capability, the role-management screen shipped in the third quarter is a feature.
Usage in the field
This level feeds the roadmap and the design work: it is the one at which you decide what the product must be able to do. It also serves to answer tenders and functional evaluation grids, which ask about capabilities and not screens.
Synonyms and variants
Capability, expected capability, expected function, functional building block.
Not to be confused with
- Feature — a dated realization located in the interface, which instantiates a capability. Several features can serve the same capability, and a feature withdrawn doesn't withdraw the capability.
- Use case / JTBD — the act of work the customer is trying to accomplish, phrased without a product answer.
- Business stake — a business objective or organizational constraint, expressed with no reference to the tool.
- Local friction point — a screen, a filter or a precise behaviour judged annoying.
Examples
"Consolidate a history" — the product must be able to do it; how it displays it stays open.
"Automate an assignment" — an expected capability, which will be realized through a rule, a workflow or a setting.
Ambiguities / debates
"Capability" and "feature" are used as synonyms in many teams, and the confusion is maintained by insight tools that offer a single field for both. The sense retained here separates them: the capability outlives the features that serve it.