Engineer a system or a platform

When the whole engineering result could come from developing people, obtaining expertise or changing the arrangement, use the small-team comparison.

Your question	Open	What you can obtain
Which system are we changing, for which use, and who else is affected?	SYSE.1 - Choose and Reopen the Project System-of-Interest, SYSE.16 - Recover the Systems and Conditions Needed for a Use Decision, SYSE.17 - Find Systems That May Bear Engineering Consequences	A useful project focus and the surrounding systems and consequences that the engineering decision must consider.
Which functions, components and interfaces should we choose?	SYSE.5 - Develop an Engineered System’s Functional Organization and Bearer Alternatives, SYSE.6 - Decide and Reopen the Engineering Architecture	Compared functional and architectural alternatives, a decision and its grounds.
How should we obtain the result: build, buy, reuse, use a provider, or combine them?	SYSE.24 - Choose How the Project Will Obtain a Needed Engineering Result; C.38 for the general comparison	Comparable whole arrangements, including the work and burden each leaves to the project.
What must be built or changed so the chosen system can exist?	SYSE.3 - Plan the Next System-Realization Action (Recursive Realization Network)	The first unsupported realization branch, its missing enabling condition, and a next planned action or earlier answer to revisit.
What can a model, trial or test justify?	SYSE.10 - Assess Research, Model, and Trial Results for an Engineering Decision, SYSE.4 - Decide Whether and How to Challenge an Engineering Claim	A claim tied to its evidence, configuration and conditions, with any further challenge needed for the decision.
Are the changes integrated and ready for the intended use?	SYSE.11 - Integrate a System for One Bounded Use, SYSE.13 - Establish Configuration Identity, Variants, and Effectivity, SYSE.14 - Make a Release Decision for Named Engineering Work or Use	Integration evidence, an identifiable configuration and a release decision for the stated use.
Is the platform helping practitioners do their work?	SYSE.12 - Develop or Retain an Engineering Platform for Practitioner Work; SYSE.25–SYSE.29 in the Systems Engineering contents	A justified choice to retain or change the enabling arrangement and the readiness or use assessment needed by the receiving decision, including adoption, economics and competing demands where relevant.
Is the difficulty specific to software delivery or reliable service?	The direct software-platform questions below, or SYSE.30–SYSE.41 in the software-platform part	A result for the particular delivery, operation or reliability problem. Use the general platform patterns for questions shared with laboratories, factories and other platforms.
Which engineering work can overlap, and which results are prerequisites?	SYSE.20 - Reconcile Overlapping Engineering Work and Required Order	An account of interacting engineering work and dependencies, with a bounded choice to retain or change the arrangement, further inquiry, or the unresolved question.
How can engineering practices continue and improve across people and time?	SYSE.21 - Decide Whether and How to Change Systems Engineering Culture	An account of actual practice, alternatives for its continuation or change, and the observations needed to judge them.