[SystemSafety] Critical Design Checklist

[SPRIGGS, John J]

A question I used to ask of avionics designers was "Would you fly on the thing yourself?".  For a defensive aids sub-system, the question was modified to "Would you stand next to it on the ground when it has just landed or is ready for take-off?"
I found it very rewarding to ask a simple question in a design review and have the guy excuse himself to go and make an urgent 'phone call...

John

From: systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de [mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of Driscoll, Kevin R
Sent: 26 August 2013 21:38
To: systemsafety at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: [SystemSafety] Critical Design Checklist

For NASA, we are creating a Critical Design Checklist:
*       Objective
-     A checklist for designers to help them determine if a safety-critical design has met its safety requirements
-     Not a "Have you done ..." checklist
w  Too easy to just check "yes" without doing sufficient work
w  Instead, "What have you done ..."
w  Prove what you have done is sufficient
*       We are looking for inputs to include in this checklist
*       Do you have any inputs that should be included?
-     Meta-question:  "If you were asked to participate in a design review of a safety-critical design, what questions would you ask?"  (Particularly, general questions you would have before seeing the details of a design.)
-     Inverse meta-question:  "If you were presenting a design, what questions would you dread being asked?"  :-}
w  Where are the bodies buried?

We are finishing the Checklist by next week and would like to include any good questions you may have that we have overlooked.   Realizing this is an imposition on your time, I am hoping some of you would be so kind as to spend just a few minutes to send questions or even question fragments.

--
P.S.
I am also looking for unusual failure scenarios to add to my collection, like those I've described in my series of "Murphy was an Optimist" presentations (e.g. http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publications/DriscollMurphyv19.pdf).

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