Scaled-Agile with Integrated System Modeling

Scaled Agile is about scaling agile product development. So how does Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and its System Modeling process enable Scaled Agile so you can start integrated and stay integrated through-out the entire product lifecycle (software and hardware)? A recent webinar by Stefan Bonnet at Thales related their experiences with both which inspired me to look deeper into how Siemens Systems Engineering solutions can enable your Agile Workflow using System Modeling Workbench solution.

System Modeling Workbench leverages Capella as its powerful modeling engine. Capella includes a tooled methodology ARCADIA (Architecture Analysis & Design Integrated Approach) to guide the product architecture development.

The ARCADIA methodology covers both the Problem and the Solution spaces through four viewpoints. Operational Analysis (OA), Systems Analysis (SA), Logical Architecture (LA), and Physical Architecture (PA). The Systems Analysis viewpoint is where the System Engineer/Architect identifies what the system needs to accomplish for the customer. The results of System Analysis directly map to the first principle in Agile development: “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of value.”

If you’re like me, you’ve been locked down recently and are catching up with your favorite TV series. So let’s use planning an on-demand video service as an example– Amazon Prime, YouTube, Netflix, or similar…Where do you start your System Analysis? First, let’s create a Mission Capabilities Blank (MCB) diagram for our System Analysis and dive in from there…

As Netflix CEO Reed Hastings recently said “… We’re in the entertainment business”. So, we create our Mission, “Commercialize entertaining of people with video”, but what capabilities would our on-demand service have to entertain people? The most basic one is “Watch a Movie” and others like “Choose Movie from Library” and more. If we consider the business stakeholder’s perspective, we’d want to “Track Movie Watching” and we keep going defining the circumstances our on-demand service would be used.

But who will use our on-demand service’s capabilities? Bring on the actors! Let’s create a Contextual System Actors (CSA) diagram:

Remember our mission is to entertain people, so let’s create a Customer actor for our Capabilities. We don’t want to forget the On-Demand Business actor either, after all – they are someone who benefits from the commercialization of our service.

Moving back to the Mission Capabilities diagram we created previously, let’s identify who is involved with which capability. All people enjoy watching a movie on-demand, but only our businessperson appreciates trends, so we will “involve” them accordingly.

So why all this work with Actors and Capabilities? In Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) A Capability is a higher-level solution behavior that typically spans multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs). What we’ve done so far in System Modeling Workbench is specify, through modeling, capabilities that provide value to some stakeholders that are to be planned for in an Agile product roadmap!

Moving on from our System Analysis, we want to articulate interaction between a person and our on-demand service. What will our System do for its stakeholders? The basic system functions could be: Stream movie, Track watched movies, Provide movie choices, so let’s model these with the System Architecture Blank (SAB) diagram.

If you ask me, “What does the system do to enable the Watch Movie capability?” I would create a Functional Chain containing the Functions and exchanges.

… and then relate to the capability it describes.