Exploring Decision Patterns for Supporting DoDAF based Architecture Design

System-of-systems architecture is an important factor leading to successful system integration and capability delivery. However, current architecture model development based on architecture frameworks places heavy reliance on expert experiences. The lack of quantitative decision support not only increases human work burden, but also misses the chance of modeling better. Thus this paper proposes to identify and use decision patterns during the process of developing architecture description models. Five decision patterns built upon meta-model and associated decision points are identified, including the downselecting, partitioning, connecting, permuting, and assigning patterns. Each provides a mathematical framework to shape the important decision-making elements. A mixed use of decision patterns for an air and missile defense SoS architecture design is simply illustrated in the end. As a preliminary study, this paper demonstrates the potential of developing decision patterns to support and ease the architecture model development.