This is But One Part of a Bigger “Whole”
A Bigger “Whole”?
It’s very hard to place a single label on things and people as both are multi-faceted. An Enterprise Architect might be a Systems Engineer (or a systems-thinker) who just happens to be using enterprise architecture to help explore, define or analyse the many system boundaries. It is unhelpful to pidgeon-hole people with a single label. Equally it’s hard in terms of the content of a site to restrict the content to a single aspect or domain as there’s often a lot of overlap.
So what do we do about this? It makes sense to avoid repetition but it also makes sense to keep the same community together. What we’ve therefore done is set it up such that the site members - the community - are members of a family of sites and where each site can make use of any of the information on any of the others.
At the moment the current family consists of:
- systems-thinkers.org - for systems-thinkers (doh!)
- trak-community.org - for enterprise architects
Systems-Thinkers.org
This is aimed at people who look outwards and who try to figure out the “bigger picture”. Sometimes these might be systems engineers but equally other non defence and aerospace sectors might have different job names (in TRAK speak) or need systems-thinking as a significant role.
The site is being developed but will include:
- resources for systems-thinkers - books, courses, organisations, websites - rated and reviewed by the community
- calendar of events for systems-thinkers - so you know what’s on, where and when
- forums and wiki (aka “body of knowledge”)
TRAK-Community.org
This is aimed at those people who represent the real world using enterprise architecture frameworks based on DODAF i.e. the Canadian DNDAF, UK MODAF, NATO NAF and UK TRAK (and the US DODAF!). A lot of the models will include one or more “systems of interest” hence the overlap.
The site includes:
- blog - “The Residual World” with news, commentary on AF-related things going on in the world at large
- Model Registry - to allow anyone who wants to share their DODAF/DNDAF/MODAF/NAF/TRAK model by characterising it and stating where it can be found. Any site member can review a model.
- forums - for getting help with modelling, specific tools and frameworks and jobs
- wiki - covering frameworks, architecture views, metamodels, stereotypes, tools and the modelling process
Chosen at random from all the resources listed:
- Requirements Engineering - A Good Practice Guide by Ian Somerville, Pete Sawyer
- Human Factors in Systems Engineering by Alphonse Chapanis
- Introduction to Radar Systems - Third Edition by Merill Ivan Skolnik
- System Requirements Analysis by Jeffrey O Grady
- Systems Thinking : Managing Chaos and Complexity by Jamshid Gharajedaghi