You will come across countless models and methodologies circulating online and, as with anything, some are useful and others are useless, and many are simply variants on the same themes – it can be difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff!
Databasics UK contains a number of posts covering various types of model, but I have tried to distil it so that the key areas are covered. Click here for a list of posts covering various models.
Types of Model
I take the view that all of these things should be driven by the business requirement, so I find it useful to classify models as belonging to three key areas:
Strategic
These models cover the positioning of your business in its market, and help to formulate strategic aims.
Examples might be product, market, and competition analysis, or processes to assess strengths, weaknesses, and competencies.
Organisational
These models cover your internal processes, structures, and people.
Examples might be models benchmarking, or for process design or redesign, along with costing models, efficiency or waste analysis, and pricing policies.
Operational
There is some overlap here with the organisational models, of course, especially when it comes to process, quality, or efficiency, but the key emphasis here is on areas like supply chains and procurement.
Examples might be methods like Balanced Scorecards, continuous improvement, Kaizen, Pareto, and models that allow a fairly detailed, deep-level analysis of business activity.