• 3    Making a simple system
• 3.1    The request
• 3.2    Building the cottage
• 3.3    Retrospective on building
• 3.4    Adding to the cottage
• 3.5    Retrospective on addition
• 3.6    Principles
• 4    Stories about building systems
• 4.1    Developing a spacecraft mission without engineering the system
• 4.2    Marketing and engineering collaboration
• 4.3    Missing implicit requirements
• 4.4    Building at a mismatch to purpose
• 4.5    The persistence of team habits
• 4.6    Heavyweight, understaffed processes
• 4.7    Planning the transcontinental railroad

A set of case studies illustrating what can go right and wrong in a project to build a system.