Spidel Tech Solutions, Inc.

Boundaries

The essence of a system is a set of things within a boundary. The boundaries define what is in and what is out of the system. The boundaries separate the system from its environment.

One of the most interesting mysteries of life is how the first living cell could build a wall around itself, thereby distinguishing itself from its environment. No one to this day has a clue about how this was accomplished. 

But systems engineers do it all the time. One job of the systems engineer is to establish the boundaries of a system.

Setting the right boundaries can make or break a development project. Why is this important?

First of all, if no boundaries are established then how do you know if the system is complete? You cannot.

If the boundaries are not clear, then there will be no end to the turf wars that ensue when the system fails. For example; suppose you cannot access the information superhighway from your computer. If the trouble is in the modem, you call the cable company or the phone company. If the server is down you call the ISP. If it’s a faulty router you call the IT person. What if your system doesn’t have clear boundaries? You don’t know who to call.

If the boundaries are too inclusive (it tries to do too much) then the system will exceed the budget.

If the boundaries are too constrained then why bother? The system does not do anything.

Lawn Mower

Consider the humble lawn mower. We can think of it as a system of interacting parts. The job of the lawn mower is to cause the grass to conform to a certain height. Its main environment is your yard. Wet grass, as we all know, affects the performance of your lawn mower. This is why we don't mow in the rain. The lawn mower interacts with the grass but the grass is not part of the lawn mower.

What if the lawn mower maker tried to define the grass to be part of his lawn mower. He would have to take responsibility for many aspects of your yard that you would not expect. Like keeping your grass growing when you over fertilize. This of course is absurd. But it is a natural consequence of defining the boundaries wrong.

How would the definition of the lawn mower change if we moved the boundaries among A, B and C.

Just as crazy things have happened when more complicated systems are designed.

Here is an exercise left to the reader. Ever wonder why so many games crash your computer?

The system engineer helps everyone to know what the consequences of particular boundaries will be. If the boundary is here then the system will cost X dollars or if over there then Y dollars. In the next section we will take up with what is outside the system with a little diversion about boundaries in general.

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