Nigel Cross

Solution to evaluation and back again

A second reason the systems engineer’s design is never completed is the solution offered to the original problem usually produces both deeper insight and dissatisfactions in the engineers themselves.

Furthermore, while the design phase continually goes from proposed solution to evaluation and back again and again, there comes a time when this process of redefinement must stop and the real problem be coped with—thus giving what they realize is, in the long run, a suboptimal solution.

Richard Hamming, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn
  1. ​​Co-Evolution of Problem and Solution Spaces in Creative Design​​