makar wrote on Sep 20
th, 2020 at 7:36pm:
Really because software design and architecture is the exact opposite in my experience. The customer (or if its inhouse, then your boss) lays out requirements they want the system to meet. Whether you are doing AGILE or older waterfall based design philosophies, you still have pretty rigid core system requirements.
And if you are doing AGILE, the whole point is to iterate on customer feedback. You get an early prototype to test and showcase to customers, so that they can help you give them the product that they ultimately want.
With waterfall and older design philosophies, you build out the design for subsystems with a rigid system architecture and before any development whatsoever starts, you get approval from the customer. You do this so they can know how you are meeting the requirements, what they can expect from you, and ultimately give input on things that may not have made the list of requirements but they decide need to be added. You do all this, because in these design philosophies it is much cheaper to iterate based on customer feedback early on.
Either way, a very simple system requirement may be that the level 20-30 process doesn't get more tedious, less balanced, or harder. Level gated destinies seem to suggest that this is not a requirement. At the very least, they could state what their requirements or design goals are for the system. It is literally impossible for them to not have this already if they already showcased a design proposal to the PC.
I'm not sure what kind of Agile development methodology your organizations have been using, but it doesn't match my experience. The end user base is almost never the Product Owner who creates the Stories in Agile development. (and is also involved in the Epics, Solutions, and Features which the Stores are based on). It may be department head, division manager or boss, sure. In this scenario that is going to be your Producer. I've never seen anyone use "the general public" as their Product Owner who is involved in Solutions, Features, or Stories. Which is what you are suggesting if you want the MoBo's involved in the overall ED design.
Also, SSG does have a smaller control group (the PC) for iterative feedback. Which many companies also use in agile as they get into . Going to a user base of thousands for feedback, however, is not done early in design.
To your comments on the ED design, giving a partial picture of such a large system is rarely going to yield a positive result. The gaps will be filled in by assumptions. Based either on hope or fear. Neither of which will probably match the end result.