Quality-based development of command and control systems

To develop command and control systems in the right way is a major challenge, where many projects fail. The list of causes of the problems is long and no single project can take on all of theme. The project Quality-based development of command and control systems began in 2011 and has taken on some of the difficulties in the development of those systems, of relevance to the Swedish Armed Forces. This report describes the results of the project in 2012, which is the last year of the project. Models are important in systems development to describe different phenomena and aspects. They constitute a means for communication between the involved actors. Chapter 3 describes 12 categories of guidelines for obtaining cognitively efficient models. These categories are: (1) Visual variables, (2) Design of symbols, (3) Comments and labels, (4) Focus, (5) Structuring of charts, (6) Grouping of elements, (7) Visualization of flows, (8) Complexity in the charts, (9) Consistent modeling, (10) Overview and navigation, (11) Documentation of the model and (12) Adjustment to the target group. Inspection is a well-accepted approach for quality assurance during development. Chapter 4 presents a framework for quality assurances of models regarding cognitive efficiency, consisting of a checklist and a method. The checklist is available in two versions depending on the purpose of the audit. Both versions contain 30 criterias to be assessed. Requirements engineering is one of the most critical activities in systems development. Chapter 5 presents the results of a literature review and an overview study of commercial tools on how different tools support different stages in requirements engineering. The literature review identified 34 tools described in scientific context and the overview study describes 15 commercial tools. Reuse is an approach to obtain quality in the developed systems, e.g., usage of so-called patterns to reuse knowledge. Chapter 6 presents a first version of pattern descriptive capabilities of command and control systems, consisting of five general abilities that management must possess. These are the abilities of: (1) communication, (2) information processing, (3) maintaining state understanding, (4) planning activities and (5) evaluating the business. Socio-technical systems such as command and control systems are particularly complex to develop as a balance must be made between the social and the technical aspects. The simplest form to describe the socio-technical systems is as MTO systems where MTO stands for Man, Technology and Organization. Chapter 7 presents a first version of a meta-model based on MTO, where five objects and four relationships are defined. It also describes the notations used for representing these objects and relationships. The objects include: Context, MTO system, Man, Technology and Organization. Relationships include: Man-Technology, Man-Organization, Technology-Organization and Context-MTO systems. The outcome of the project in 2012 is mainly based on theoretical studies. It is hoped that their practical application can be related to other projects in the Swedish Armed Forces, in the same manner as previous years' results have.