Abstract : The goal of this book is to show how architectures can be used to enable a capabilities-based approach to the research, development, and acquisition of DoD families of systems that must interoperate with each other in the conduct of military operations. Much has been written about architectures and about capabilities-based acquisition. This book is about the pilot projects that have actually been used to explore the utility of the architecture methodology for both U.S. Navy fleet experimentation and the recent building of the Fiscal Year 2004 Program Objective Memorandum (POM 04) acquisition plan. At the time of this book's publication, the architecture methodology has been used successfully to describe and assess components of two Fleet Battle Experiments. It was also used to develop organizing exhibits at the early stages of planning for POM 04, although the exhibits were not used in the final decision-making process. The Assistant Secretary for the Navy (ASN) Research, Development, and Acquisition (RDA) Chief Engineer did use the Multi-Attribute Utility Analysis to advise ASN(RDA). Additionally, the architecture methodology has been used to influence decision-making with U.S. Coalition partners.