Brief look at IDEF0-5
What is IDEF?
History & Context
Back in the 70s the United States Air Force hired a bunch of PhDs to come up with a recommended set of best practices when creating and organizing system models. This was meant to enable greater agility in collaborating on complex projects between agencies within the Department of Defense.
Legacy
Unfortunately, despite my adoration of IDEF as a family, the ONLY language that’s seems to have caught even a modest amount of adoption/success is IDEF0.
Why It’s Great
Models are used to represent physical objects, concepts, processes, and entire domains. Each modeling language works as a standalone system, but they also build naturally upon one-another. They are a wonderful mix of structure & flexibility. A perfect balance between high-level and high-detail. Perhaps most importantly, they are a mix of intuitive and complete. It takes no training to understand an IDEF0 Function Diagram. IDEF3 Schematics can be interpreted with a cursory glance at a legend of symbols. However, despite this at-a-glance utility, they can be incredibly deep and encapsulate and present knowledge that would take years to cultivate otherwise.
Recurring Themes
- Graphics over words
- Definition specificity
- Unique indices & cross-referencing
- Layers of complexity represented through decomposition
- Consistent application techniques
IDEF0-5
Pretty well spelled out below.
Note: I just realized the IDEF3 split-out is wrong. It should be an ”&” and it should also include the IDEF3 version of State Diagrams.