Enhancing Military Architectural Frameworks with Method Chunks: A Modular Approach to Agile C2-System Design
Military command and control system (C2-system) design is increasingly shaped by emerging technologies such as AI-enabled decision support, multi-sensor fusion and autonomous intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. Architecture frameworks such as the NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) provide a structure for describing complex systems, but are less explicit about how to select entry points and sequence modeling activities. This article proposes a modular, context-informed framework, an extension to NAF, that combines Navigation Guidance with a repository of seven reusable Method Chunks (MCs) to support architectural design activities in a C2-system context. Using Design Science Research (DSR) as the overarching framework, this work is based on Situational Method Engineering (SME) and MAP-based formalization. A demonstration instantiates the framework for integrating a next-generation ISR capability into a C2-system. The resulting architecture and modeling activities link operational workflow to capability framing and cross-level capability dependencies and are consolidated through documentation and traceability artifacts. Collectively, the architecture supports reasoning about mission impact, capability motivation, coordination requirements, and traceability, while keeping later models anchored in a relevant operational context and workflow. The contribution of this work is methodological. The demonstration illustrates how a specific NAF-aligned modeling progression can be instantiated for an ISR integration case.