The changing role of requirements and architecture in systems engineering

In the past, requirements were the principal tool for defining the problem, with architecture being the domain of the designer. This makes sense under a static model in which user requirements are well understood, technology is evolving slowly, organizational dynamics can be mapped out in advance and external interfaces are stable. The system-of-systems environment is anything but static. This paper examines two key challenges in defining architecture and requirements in a dynamic system-of-systems context: (1) the use of architecture in defining the problem; (2) co-evolution of systems