Thinking Through the Structure of System Design

TDM Thinking Through the Structure of System Design
Part 4 of the Getting Design Right Series

Course Overview:

Welcome to the pivotal Course 5 in the Getting Design Right Series by the Cornell Systems Engineering Program. In this course, we delve into the essential step of Developing the Architecture. This is where your journey through system design truly takes shape as you learn to articulate how a system functions and interacts within its environment.

What You'll Learn:

• 🏗️ Architectural Description: Master the art of describing system architecture in a way that's accessible to all members of your design team, regardless of their specialization.
• 🤝 Interdisciplinary Communication: Learn how to bridge language and communication barriers between different disciplines within systems engineering.
• 🛠️ Behavioral Basis for Architecture: Understand the importance of a behavioral perspective in architecture, an aspect often overlooked by traditional systems engineering approaches.
• 🎯 Design for Six Sigma: Explore how architecture plays a key role that is typically undervalued in Design for Six Sigma methodologies.
• 🚀 End-User Centric Approach: Ensure every aspect of the product or service has been meticulously considered from the user's perspective, thanks to a behavior-centered design approach.
• 🧠 Systems Thinking: Enhance your problem-solving skills by learning to abstract system behavior and think through coordination, control, functionality, and performance of subsystems.

Course Structure:

1. Introduction to System Architecture: Understanding the framework and objectives of architecting a system.
2. Communication Across Disciplines: Techniques for effectively conveying design concepts across various engineering fields.
3. Developing a General Language for Description: Crafting a universal language that all team members can comprehend and utilize.
4. Behavioral Systems Architecture: Emphasizing the often-neglected behavioral aspects in systems engineering.
5. Operational Descriptions and Work Products: Deriving system behavior from detailed operational descriptions to create comprehensive work products.
6. Affinity Process for Abstraction: Utilizing abstraction to refine system behavior and streamline design thinking.
7. Allocating Functionality and Performance: Assigning subsystem responsibilities based on coordination, control, functionality, and performance requirements.
8. Finalizing Your System Design: Pulling together all the elements into a cohesive architecture that reflects a deep understanding of system behavior and interplay.

Why Take This Course?

• 🌟 Relevance: The concepts and tools covered in this course are relevant to a wide array of projects, from small-scale innovations to large-scale systems engineering endeavors.
• 🤓 Comprehensive Coverage: This course is designed to provide a holistic understanding of system architecture that complements the previous courses in the series and sets the stage for the subsequent ones.
• 🚀 Career Advancement: Mastering system design architecture will equip you with critical skills that are highly sought after in various industries, opening up new career opportunities and pathways.

Embark on this journey to elevate your understanding of system design and architecture. Enhance your ability to articulate complex ideas clearly and effectively, and become a pivotal member of any systems engineering team. Let's build the future together, one well-structured system at a time! 🚀💡