Tuesday, December 19, 2023

System of Systems Dynamics

System of Systems Dynamics

The Global University Alliance (GUA) is an open group of academics with the ambition to provide both business and academia with state-of-the-art insights. Through its ties with the LEADing Practice community, which includes large firms and governments, the GUA is able to evaluate and valorize its scientific output. Since 2004, the members of the GUA have striven for a continuous improvement of their expertise through the research, comparison, analysis and development of Best and LEADing Practices in Business. Throughout this process, the GUA builds its own implicit ontology that revolves around Complex System of Systems Dynamics (SoSD).

To meet the needed insight and  intelligence-related operations, cases, (etc.), spanning the law enforcement and military/defense and security sectors, we need far better system of system dynamics between Multi-national, Multi-agency, Multi-disciplinary, Multi-domain Information Sharing and Sense-making approaches. In this the Global University Alliance (GUA) which is an open group that together with governments, defense organizations and research institutes builds an implicit ontology that revolves around Complex System of Systems Dynamics (SoSD).As ontology formally represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain, and the relationships between those concepts, it can be used to model a domain and support reasoning about concepts.

The Global University Alliance is using the concept of SoSD as both an area to gather researchers in the field, as a basis to share vocabulary and to identify the very definition of the relevant objects and concepts. Involving a standardisation process, the project will create intelligence-related enterprise relevant standards with ‘best practice’ and leading practice guides/guidelines, which can be used at many different levels of activity from local to global.[1]

Goal:

  • Involving a standardisation process, the project will create future intelligence-related enterprise relevant standards and ‘best practice’ and leading practice guides/guidelines.
  •  These standards will relate to SoSD use and development in and during intelligence-related operations, cases, (etc.), spanning the law enforcement and military/defence and security sectors.

Method:

  • The project will draw on a Multi-national, Multi-agency, Multi-disciplinary, Multi-domain Information Sharing and Sense-making (M4IS2) approach.

Project insights:

  •  The project will examine and consider theoretical and empirical dimensions of all of the observed SoSD internal and external interactions and ramifications.
  • The SoSD will be both evaluated and addressed as they are unfolding in the following contexts of:
    • multi-functional and special operations (MFO/SOs), which are
    • being conducted in ‘complex co-existence plurality’ environments, during
    • an overall era of Globalised Strategic Risk (GSR).

Backgrounder:

  • System of Systems Dynamics (SoSD) consist of: SoS Theory (SoST), SoS Analysis (SoSA), and SoS Engineering (SoSE) concepts.
  • These SoSD are found in any strategic-to-operational spaces (e.g. relating to crime in peace conditions), even ranging into more ‘kinetic’ battlespaces (e.g. in war contexts).
  • SoSD components in turn consist of the following dimensions:
    • ‘PMESII’ (‘Political, Military, Economic, Social, Informational and Infrastructural’);
    • ‘PESTLE’ (Political/Policy, Economic, Sociological/Social, Technological/Technology, Legal/Legislative, Environmental/Ecological);
    • ‘STEEP’ (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political);
    • ‘DIME’ (Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economic); and/or
    • ‘HSCB’ (Human, Social, Cultural, Behavioural), etc.

The Intelligence-domain System of Systems Dynamics Reference Content, will embed the GUA’s implicit ontology, includes specific objects and/or concepts that exist, and their properties and relations in the following domains of business (that might be covered by the following SoSD ontologies and semantic relations):

  • Business Model Design
  • Strategy and Goal
  • Scorecards and Decision Making
  • Value Management, Value Engineering, Value Architecture and VDML (OMG)
  • Case Handling and Case Management (OMG)
  • Information Management
  • Data Modelling
  • Enterprise Engineering
  • Process Modelling (BPMN-OMG & X-BPMN-LEAD)
  • Performance Management
  • Service Modelling
  • Measurements & Reporting
  • Governance
  • Enterprise Modelling
  • Enterprise Architecture

The recent Intelligence-domain System of Systems Dynamics workgroup within the Global University Alliance has adopted the concept of the LEAD Meta Model, as it identified the necessity of introducing such object meta model into today’s Intelligence-domain System of Systems Dynamics research. In order to develop this Intelligence-domain System of Systems Dynamics Framework, these practices should promote new ways of thinking, working and modelling around SoSD.

‘Making it STARC’! is a presentation by Adam D.M. Svendsen who proposes future ways forward for contemporary military & special operations intelligence & knowledge work.

Call To Action

To realize this vision, the GUA alliance reaches out to all business and Intelligence-domain System of Systems Dynamics researchers and practitioners to contribute to the consolidation of academic findings in a research-based Intelligence-domain System of Systems Dynamics Reference Content that can be used by industries and universities alike. As the GUA considers dissemination and valorization of research as its core tasks, the Intelligence-domain System of Systems Dynamics Reference Content should provide the foundations for core concepts e.g. frameworks, methods and approaches. If you are interested in or would like to contribute to the Intelligence-domain System of Systems Dynamics Framework, do not hesitate to contact the coordinator.

The System of Systems Dynamics research contacts are:

Research Coordinator:
Adam D.M. Svendsen, PhD
Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS)

Global University Alliance Coordinator:
Professor Mark von Rosing
Head of Global University Alliance, Denmark

LEADing Practice Coordinator:
Georg Etzel
LEADing Practice, Co-CEO

The members involved in this work have been a team that includes academics, researchers and analysts:

  • Business Ontology, Wim Laurier
  • Enterprise Semantics, Simon Polovina
  • Business Model, Mark von Rosing
  • Business Process Management, Marlon Dumas
  • Information Management, Hans Scheruhn
  • Value & Performance Management, Maria Hove
  • Enterprise Sustainability, David Coloma
  • ERP, Karin Gräslund
  • Enterprise Architecture, John Zachman (inventor of Enterprise Architecture)
  • Enterprise Engineering, Maxim Arzumanyan
  • Enterprise Modelling, Ulrik Foldager
  • Measurement & Reporting, Ulrik Foldager

[1] See also, e.g., ‘Looking to enterprise for an intel boost’, C4ISR & Networks (9 May 2014).