Untitled - Universidade de Lisboa

Military Doctrine and Business Rules in the Development of
Operational and Support Concepts
Carlos Páscoa 1,2 , João Carvalho 1 , José Tribolet 2,3
1
Department of University Education, Portuguese Air Force Academy, Sintra, Portugal
2
Department of Information Systems and Computer Science, Instituto Superior Técnico,
Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal
3
CODE - Center for Organizational Design & Engineering, INOV, Rua Alves Redol 9, Lisbon, Portugal
cjpascoa@gmail.com, jccarvalho88@gmail.com, jose.tribolet@inesc.pt
Extended abstract
Every business process is based on business rules, which are provided by their own management
manuals. It is important for an organization such as the Portuguese Air Force to collect the required
capabilities from the existing business rules in order to be able to face the surrounding environment,
adapt to changes and to be provided the correct guidance for its business processes, which are
developed according to its mission. Aiming to achieve the optimum output at the executing level,
which would in turn boost the processes’ efficiency and, therefore, allow the organization to achieve
its goals while resorting to a diminishing budget, it is critical to maintain a correct alignment between
its business rules.
Three military publications were analyzed in this research, the Operational Concept, the Weapons
Systems’ Logistics Concept and the Employment Concept. The first manual corresponds to the
strategic layer of command and the last two are positioned at the tactic level.
The Operational Concept determines what governance mechanisms should be present in each
manual and also specifies that every publication must include personnel, intelligence, operational,
logistics and support (PIOLA) information which should, in turn, from an operational point of view,
focus on characterizing each weapons system and defining their essential elements while taking into
consideration their associated governance mechanisms and establishing the correct way to deploy
them. These concepts should also define the operation, mission and operational tasks for each weapons
system.
This study produced a Concept Verification Matrix through which it is possible to demonstrate the
alignment between any set of business rules manuals in terms of PIOLA concepts and a matrix that
adapts the Concept Verification Matrix to a Transversal Business Rules Matrix.
This last matrix provides for a unique interpretation and execution of all the organization’s business
processes through a correct definition of business rules for each high level business process in
accordance with an adequate alignment for what is determined for each area of business.
A partial alignment was found between the analyzed manuals as none of the business rules defined
by the subordinate publications were opposite to those the main publication predicted. However these
manuals were not constructed as defined, chapter wise, nor approached all the governance mechanisms
and PIOLA concepts determined by the Operational Concept. It was also determined that any changes
in a specific business rule in a particular manual would press for the other manuals to also be altered.
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