Changing the Mindset from Systems of Systems to Sets of Systems

The problem with Systems of Systems is that they are the rigid stepchildren of their Systems(Hyper)Engineered parents. Replete with design-laden characteristics they belie the core functionality they were built to embody ~ agility. Agility, if truly desired, must be the core design principle. What this means is that as important as determinism, or your Most Important Requirement(s), agility must be. A SySofSys ends up with additional functionality but no leverage to change and add additional additional functionality. A SetsofSys approach takes as a guiding principle that you are creating an IT toolbox which parses functionality into meaningful chunks and provides for quick assemblage. This requires an overlay approach where an organizing principle, the overlay, is created. An overlay governs which capabilities are brought to bear, not the original design. The original design design is of the IT backplane & the core capabilities. An overlay design facility must exist that allows mildly experienced analysts to whip up an new app config quickly. Not during run time mind you; we must allow for solid run time performance & rarely does reconfig occur during the execution of business. It is normally during a pause, or lull...business is still occuring, like a heartbeat, but you are not hot in the race.

next post: SW moves from a design-time activity to a run-time (design)