Design Method Requirements for Agile System of Systems

The paper defines the need for new and innovative methods for business analysts to analyze and design systems in the emerging agile environments. The paper goal is to provide models for business analysts to identify collaborative arrangements needed to sustain collaboration within continually evolving business environment. The paper begins by describing the characteristics of the emerging environments and the requirements of new design methodologies. It focuses on ways to manage complexity, process integration and emphasis on social structures needed to respond creatively to changes in the environment. The goal is to create an architecture that encourages the emergence of new collaborations in response to changes in the environment. The paper proposes living systems theory as the framework for identifying the relationships of business units of different organizations and the messaging structure to support emerging collaboration between the business units. It combines this theory with open modelling to show ways to manage complexity, process integration and collaboration. It then describes the kinds of tools needed to support the modelling and illustrates with an example of its use. It uses process outsourcing that involves a number of partners and suppliers as an example