Sharing. Some system designs are proprietary. Or, to see this another way, some system designs are made by others and kept secret: you do not get to look at them. Sometimes this is for the good of the many, sometimes it is more for the good of those who designed the system, as they want their design to make money for them or to give them some other advantage.
Should your design be proprietary? Let us consider why it should not be.
A design that is shared with others is sometimes called open. This is because it is open to inspection and to critical review. It is also open to modification or adaptation. Others are free to provide enhancements or make faulty versions. If you as designer are open to hear of such changes and criticisms, you may find that you got some good (and perhaps some bad) design review, audit, and testing for free.
This is especially good if your design is an evolving one. While there are those with bad intent or narrow perspective who may give you bad advice or reviews, most are not with bad intent, and many have an interest in improving your system, and not stealing credit or advantage from you. So consider sharing.
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Redundancy. It is useful to do things more than once, especially when you are not sure it was done right the first time, or can be done reliably a second time.
Systems which need continuous operation need fall back or backup systems. These are often copies of the original system, but scaled down or simplified so that there is less chance of failure. They could also be predecessors of the system being supported.
Systems keep copies of information to ensure the information is never lost. It also helps to recover and reassemble information when some of it is lost, if you have to spread pieces of it around to start.
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Creativity. It is a creative act when you say, “I shall design a system to do the following:…”, primarily when this saying is a recognition of an unmet need, or of a better mousetrap, or even of a desire for self-improvement. But you may yearn for creativity in the system, or the approach to solving certain problems that arise in the design, or evem in the implementation. What do you do to stimulate creativity?
One way is to read, play, and involve oneself in things other than the system design. If you are truly motivated in creating this system, it will be a part of you even as you do other things. Then when inspiration strikes from outside, it will be because you have experienced many things, and exposed yourself to many suggestive influences, one of which became quite influential.
Another way is to set challenging subtasks within the design process. If you test yourself by adding unlikely constraints to the requirements, you may come up with an unlikely and thus creative resolution to those constraints.
Even if you lack creativity, you can list things that are normal constraints as well as things that satisfy those constraints. By routine analysis and attention to detail, uninspired thinking can still lead to good design, and a good design well-implememted is creative enough.
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