DODAF - DOD Architecture Framework Version 2.02 - DOD Deputy Chief Information Officer

DoDAF Viewpoints and Models

Operational Viewpoint

OV-4: Organizational Relationships Chart

The OV-4 shows organizational structures and interactions. The organizations shown may be civil or military. The OV-4 exists in two forms; role-based (e.g., a typical brigade command structure) and actual (e.g., an organization chart for a department or agency).

A role-based OV-4 shows the possible relationships between organizational resources. The key relationship is composition, i.e., one organizational resource being part of a parent organization. In addition to this, the architect may show the roles each organizational resource has, and the interactions between those roles, i.e., the roles represent the functional aspects of organizational resources. There are no prescribed resource interactions in DoDAF V2.0: the architect should select an appropriate interaction type from the DM2 or add a new one. Interactions illustrate the fundamental roles and management responsibilities, such as supervisory reporting, Command and Control (C2) relationships, collaboration and so on.

An actual OV-4 shows the structure of a real organization at a particular point in time, and is used to provide context to other parts of the architecture such as AV-1 and the CVs.

The intended usage of the role-based OV-4 includes:

  • Organizational analysis.
  • Definition of human roles.
  • Operational analysis.

The intended usage of the actual OV-4 includes:

  • Identify architecture stakeholders.
  • Identify process owners.
  • Illustrate current or future organization structures.

Detailed Description:

The OV-4 addresses the organizational aspects of an Architectural Description. A typical OV-4 illustrates the command structure or relationships (as opposed to relationships with respect to a business process flow) among human roles, organizations, or organization types that are the key players in the business represented by the architecture. An actual OV-4 shows real organizations and the relationships between them.

The more commonly used types of organizational relationship will be defined, in time, in the DoDAF Meta-model. DoDAF defines fundamental relationships between Organizational Resources; including structure (whole-part) and interaction. The interaction relationship covers most types of organizational relationship. An OV-4 clarifies the various relationships that can exist between organizations and sub-organizations within the Architectural Description and between internal and external organizations. Where there is a need for other types of organizational relationships, these should be recorded and defined in the AV-2 Integrated Dictionary as extensions to the DM2.

Organizational relationships are important to depict in an architecture model, because they can illustrate fundamental human roles (e.g., who or what type of skill is needed to conduct operational activities) as well as management relationships (e.g., command structure or relationship to other key players). Also, organizational relationships are drivers for some of the collaboration requirements that are viewed using Needlines.

Note that individual people are not viewed in DoDAF, but specific billets or Person Types may be detailed in an actual OV-4.

In both the typical and specific cases, it is possible to overlay resource interaction relationships which denote relationships between organizational elements that are not strictly hierarchical (e.g., a customer-supplier relationship).

The organizations that are modeled using OV-4 may also appear in other models, for example in the SV-1 Systems Interface Description as organizational constituents of a capability or a resource and PV-1 Project Portfolio Relationships where organizations own projects. In a SV-1 Systems Interface Description, for instance, the organizational resources defined in a typical OV-4 may be part of a capability or resources. Also, actual organizations may form elements of a fielded capability which realizes the requirements at the system-level (again, this may be depicted on a SV-1 Systems Interface Description).

A OV-4 may show types of organizations and the typical structure of those organizations. The OV-4 may alternatively show actual, specific organizations (e.g., the DoD) at some point in time. Alternatively, an OV-4 may be a hybrid diagram showing typical and actual organization structures.

OV-1: High-Level Operational Concept Graphic

OV-2: Operational Resource Flow Description

OV-3: Operational Resource Flow Matrix

OV-4: Organizational Relationships Chart

OV-5a: Operational Activity Decomposition Tree

OV-5b: Operational Activity Model

OV-6a, 6b, 6c: Introduction

OV-6a: Operational Rules Model

OV-6b: State Transition Description

OV-6c: Event-Trace Description