System Architecture: Strategy and Product Development for Complex Systems, First Edition

7.2 Identifying the Solution-Neutral Function

In order to move to more realistic systems, we will now introduce two higher-complexity examples: an air transportation service and a home information network. We’ll begin by identifying the functional intent expressed as solution-neutral function. We use intent to designate goals for a system. In order to reason about the architecture of a system, we need to understand something about the goals.

We will focus here on the functional intent derived from the primary need of the primary beneficiary. A more detailed and comprehensive approach to prioritizing stakeholders and goals derived from their needs will be presented in Chapter 11.

For the air transportation service, we’ll focus on the traveler ...