Designing Complex Systems

22 n Designing Complex Systems

the disease. By having a complete set of symptoms we can, presumably, identify

any disease, but this is not the same as knowing the disease, in the sense of what

causes it, which becomes apparent when we look for a cure. Similarly, having a set

of functional parameters that would be adequate for describing the functionality

is not the same as knowing the purpose, which becomes apparent when we try to

optimize our design.

In summary, the point of departure for our design methodology is a set of

requirements for the to-be-designed object, the stakeholder requirements. ese

requirements fall into two main groups: physical parameters describing what the

object should be, and functional parameters describing wh