[genericresponse]

This material is concerning to me on a base level.

To me, it doesn't reflect positively on the cost and complexity to implement a large scale system. It presents much of the material without a simple guide to what should be optional, when, and where.

You almost need a huge number of people to even digest the material and then make decisions about it. It feels like a massive reflection of the government contracting industry. I see it illustrating the value of editorial or architectural control and a willingness to take risks by saying "no".

[whalesalad]

Systems engineering in its very nature is a huge task. You’re trying to balance the various tug of war battles between everything. Cost, performance, reliability, weight, etc... How light is this material vs how strong is it? What kind of tooling do we already have that can we use vs do we need to invent new tooling? Inventing new tooling is expensive. Inventing new tooling requires training on new tools. Training is expensive. The list goes on and on. Systems engineering is preventing deadlock.

I’m speaking in the physical world (aircraft) but the same concepts apply to software. If your system is small, sure you can do it all in your head. But if it’s large, you need to put a cohesive plan together that accounts for everyones issues, even if they aren’t going to get solved right away.

So yeah, you do need a whole team to do this kind of thing.