Enterprise Systems Engineering Theory and Practice, Volume 9: Enterprise Research and Development (Agile Functionality for Decision Superiority)

Volume 9 lays the groundwork for the D400 Enterprise Systems Engineering Research and Development paradigm. Motivating our paradigm is a fundamental goal of Network-Centric Warfare and Operations (NCOW): "getting the right information to the right people at the right time to make the right decisions." To contribute to the realization of this goal, we have identified agile information generation, management, and exploitation as the three canonical function areas that underpin our paradigm. Information generation addresses the problem of "getting the right information" by collecting, fusing, aggregating, and drawing inferences from data gathered from any and all sources on the extended battlefield—and in a networkcentric world, any entity that can make observations can function as a data-generating sensor. Information management addresses the critical need of constructing sufficient infrastructure to ensure that this information is made available to "the right people at the right time, constrained by the right budget" in the highly distributed and fluid force of the future. The primary focus of information exploitation is the combination of people and technology to process this information to make "the right decisions." Our paradigm addresses the agile, flexible combination of these functions across multiple enterprise scales and military echelons for both the conventional and asymmetrical threats that characterizes the 21st century security environment.

An important aspect of the paradigm is that warfighters and their mission areas are the "forcing function" for the development of information technology and collaborative processes that serve to promote innovation in decision making. Within this framework, we recognize that a large part of enterprise complexity comes from the fact that its performance and evolution are driven by creative and adaptable people interacting with systems, organizations, and external influences. Identifying both positive and negative effects of this "emergence" is an important research goal.

Section 1 motivates the need to transform the military into a network-centric enterprise, describes the defining characteristics of this enterprise, and summarizes key building blocks of the research paradigm. Sections 2 through 4 describe information generation, management, and exploitation in greater detail by highlighting the critical design principles and research needs to ensure their agile combination. To highlight anticipated returns-on-investment from this research, Section 5 considers a complex, time-sensitive operational scenario in which all three functions of the paradigm come together fluidly to improve military effectiveness and impact.