UAF Strategic Planning for Enterprises

In this paper, we propose an extension to the Unified Architecture Framework (UAF) Profile to leverage the potential of the widely used SWOT analysis in modeling the UAF strategic viewpoint of an enterprise or System of Systems (SoS). This novel methodology assists with capturing the capabilities an enterprise needs to achieve its goals through the SWOT analysis. Capabilities are key elements in the UAF Strategic viewpoint. Previous works for identifying capabilities only showcase the resulting strategic views without interpreting their ties to the UAF strategic elements. The absence of a common methodology for incorporating strategic planning into the UAF is a potential deterrent for enterprises to accept the UAF. To address this gap, we propose using the SWOT analysis as an established method of strategic planning that has been used for many years in various enterprises. The four SWOT elements, i.e., Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat, are comparable to the UAF strategic elements Challenge and Opportunity which are the basis for capturing the enterprise capabilities. We extend the UAF profile to enable SWOT elements in the UAF and provide dependency relationships to illustrate traceability between SWOT elements and capabilities. This paper provides two key contributions. First, this work extends the UAF Profile to identify capabilities from SWOT analysis which takes both internal and external conditions of the enterprise into account. Second, we develop the methodology to create the necessary views which trace the SWOT elements to the stakeholders and capabilities. The proposed method is one that enterprises and SoS managers can employ to adopt UAF with minimal to no disruption to their current business processes. We also demonstrate a seamless integration of the SWOT analysis into the UAF. Finally, we use an illustrative example of a hypothetical enterprise to demonstrate the new SWOT diagrams enabled through the proposed extension.