System Architecture Principle 2: You can't do everything for everyone

Tagline: You can't do everything for everyone.

Descriptive version: A system of any size will have many stakeholders with many needs to be satisfied  it will be very difficult or very expensive to completely satisfy all of them.

Prescriptive version: An architect must make trades between which needs will be fully satisfied and those that will be partially satisfied or not satisfied at all.

Discussion: Projects of any significance will have multiple stakeholders each with multiple needs that must be satisfied . It is up to the architect to determine the most important stakeholders and needs that must be satisfied . Sometimes this means that needs that are very important to a stakeholder will not be satisfied . It is important for the architect to use high quality (low variability) information when making the decision as to the most important needs to satisfy and which should be partially satisfied or wholly considered out of project scope.

As a supplement to this principle, according to Ed Crawley: "Very many factors will in influence and act on the conception, design, implementation, and operation of a system."

(As a corollary to this principle, the stakeholder with the need that has the least importance will be the most vocal stakeholder, causing no end of grief for the architect.)