Design Considerations Overview

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The Program Manager (PM) and Systems Engineer should consider and document all statutory and regulatory requirements, as well as other design considerations, in order to:

• Translate the end-user desired capabilities into a structured system of interrelated design specifications that support delivery of required operational capability.
• Enable trade-offs among the design considerations in support of achieving desired mission effectiveness within cost and schedule constraints.
• Incorporate design considerations into the set of system requirements, as some are mandated by laws, regulations or treaties, while others are mandated by the domain or DoD Component or Agency; these mandates should be incorporated during the Requirements Analysis process to achieve balance across all system requirements.

Some design considerations are concepts that assist trade-offs and should be accommodated or applied to each system or program. Others are constraints, boundaries or limitations, with values that can sometimes be tailored or negotiated, but which generally represent immovable parts of the trade space. The PM and Systems Engineer should show evidence of critical thinking in addressing the design considerations, as documented in the program SEP. According to the SEP Outline, the SEP should include a table of design considerations that are critical to the program and are an integral part of the design process, including trade-off analyses.

With the understanding that each design consideration is a discrete item to investigate during the design process, the PM, Systems Engineer, and other stakeholders should also view design considerations as an integrated set of variables that can influence one another. The PM and Systems Engineer should consider them in conjunction with one another, as early as the Analysis of Alternatives, to achieve better mission performance and to preclude a stovepipe view during design.

Table 5-1 lists the statutory requirements for the design considerations covered in SE Guidebook, Section 5 Design Considerations, as well as applicable policy and guidance related to those design considerations. The design considerations listed in Table 5-1 below should be assessed for applicability to the system, as they may not all be appropriate. Program Managers and Systems Engineers can incorporate the standards into acquisition contracts to support delivery of required operational capability. It is important to note the supplemental guidance contains several mandatory standards.

SE Guidebook, Table 5-1 is not all inclusive; it does not include any additional design considerations levied by the Service, the Center, the platform, or the domain. Not all design considerations are equally important or critical to a given program, but all should be examined for relevancy.

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SE Guidebook, Table 5-1: Design Considerations

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Policy and Guidance

• SE Guidebook Section 5 Design Considerations
• Systems Engineering Plan (SEP) Outline Section 2.5 Design Considerations

DAU Training

• ETM 1050 Design Considerations Fundamentals
• ETM 2050VDesign Considerations for Practitioners

DAU Media

• ETM 2050 Course Overview - Video