Problem Posing as a System Engineering Paradigm

Abstract

One of the banes of modern software development is needing to make design decisions before enough information is available to do so with adequate justification. In this paper, we describe a novel system engineering technique that helps alleviate the problem by allowing many such decisions to be delayed until they can be made with sufficient supporting information. We expect this approach will substantially improve the effectiveness of software design in the most difficult cases of complex software systems embedded in dynamic and uncertain environments. We describe the steps in the process, and how the Problem Posing Interpretation extends the Scenario Based Engineering Process to provide this flexibility. We illustrate the development steps with an example of a testbed for studying distributed cooperative behavior.