DoDAF Viewpoints and Models
Operational Viewpoint
OV-5a: Operational Activity Decomposition Tree and OV-5b: Operational Activity Model
The OV-5a and the OV-5b describe the operations that are normally conducted in the course of achieving a mission or a business goal. It describes operational activities (or tasks); Input/Output flows between activities, and to/from activities that are outside the scope of the Architectural Description.
The OV-5a and OV-5b describes the operational activities that are being conducted within the mission or scenario. The OV-5a and OV-5b can be used to:
- Clearly delineate lines of responsibility for activities when coupled with OV-2.
- Uncover unnecessary Operational Activity redundancy.
- Make decisions about streamlining, combining, or omitting activities.
- Define or flag issues, opportunities, or operational activities and their interactions (information flows among the activities) that need to be scrutinized further.
- Provide a necessary foundation for depicting activity sequencing and timing in the OV-6a Operational Rules Model, the OV-6b State Transition Description, and the OV-6c Event-Trace Description.
The OV-5b describes the operational, business, and defense portion of the intelligence community activities associated with the Architectural Description, as well as the:
- Relationships or dependencies among the activities.
- Resources exchanged between activities.
- External interchanges (from/to business activities that are outside the scope of the model).
An Operational Activity is what work is required, specified independently of how it is carried out. To maintain this independence from implementation, logical activities and locations in OV-2 Operational Resource Flow Description are used to represent the structure which carries out the Operational Activities. Operational Activities are realized as System Functions (described in SV-4 Systems Functionality Description) or Service Functions (described in SvcV-4 Services Functionality Description) which are the how to the Operational Activities what, i.e., they are specified in terms of the resources that carry them out.
The intended usage of the OV-5a and OV-5b includes:
- Description of activities and workflows.
- Requirements capture.
- Definition of roles and responsibilities.
- Support task analysis to determine training needs.
- Problem space definition.
- Operational planning.
- Logistic support analysis.
- Information flow analysis.
Detailed Description:
The OV-5s and OV-2 Operational Resource Flow Description model are, to a degree, complements of each other. The OV-5s focuses on the operational activities whereas OV-2 Operational Resource Flow Description model focuses on the operational activities in relation to locations. Due to the relationship between locations and operational activities, these types of models should normally be developed together. An OV-5a or OV-5b describes the operational activities (or tasks) that are normally conducted in the course of achieving a mission or a business goal. The OV-5b also describes Input/Output flows between activities, and to/from activities that are outside the scope of the Architectural Description. The OV-5a and OV-5b are equally suited to describing non-military activities and are expected to be used extensively for business modeling.
The activities described in an OV-5a or OV-5b are standard Operational Activities which are mapped to corresponding capabilities in the CV-6 Capability to Operational Activities Mapping. Standard Operational Activities are those defined in doctrine, but which are not tailored to a specific system, i.e., they are generic enough to be used without closing off a range of possible solutions.
Possible Construction Methods: DoDAF does not endorse a specific activity modeling methodology. The OV-5b can be constructed using Integration Definition for Function Modeling (IDEF0) or Class Diagrams.
There are two basic ways to depict Activity Models:
- The Activity Decomposition Tree shows activities depicted in a tree structure and is typically used to provide a navigation aid.
- The Activity Model shows activities connected by Resource Flows; it supports development of an OV-3 Operational Resource Flow Matrix.
The OV-5a helps provide an overall picture of the activities involved and a quick reference for navigating the OV-5b.
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