SYSE.1:4.3 - Generate and criticize materially different referents

Generate alternatives from the working situation. After the direct-subject exit in §4.2, retain a candidate referent for the project system-of-interest only when it is one of two things:

1. an actual System, with A.1.SCR recognition when that recognition is decision-relevant; or
2. an intended referent for a System not yet present, kept as a designator in plan, decision, or description content rather than described as an already acting System.

Examples include an actual product System, tool System, engineering platform, operating System, provider System, containing System, or organization System, and the intended referent of any such possible-future System. A provider arrangement or organization qualifies only when that whole is an admitted actual System or such an intended referent. A subject changed by a tool, a collection, Work, Method, capability, state, description, or another holon remains the direct subject or a related structure unless it satisfies the same System condition. The examples are non-exhaustive. Retain only candidates that would change a later decision.

For each candidate, compare the claims that matter now:

• the outside use or change the candidate is expected to support;
• the project boundary and the relation to related projects;
• the participating and affected Systems;
• the boundary, interaction, constituent, containment, ownership, authority, or other direct relations that actually change the choice;
• the important characteristics, constraints, feasibility branches, evidence, and uncertainty; and
• the assumption or observation that would defeat the candidate.

Treat familiar project facts—payment, delivery, ownership, enterprise boundary, a diagram, the transformer that performs realization Work, or the subject visibly changed by a tool—as evidence about candidates or project boundaries. Choose the project system-of-interest through the project’s stated use and decision.

Retain several candidates when later learning can change their order or when different candidates preserve valuable options. Let the current decision, available resources, and named stop determine the candidate count and comparison effort. Stop when the current choice is good enough to ask the next consequential question and its reopening evidence is named.