The technology of system management

This paper describes a set of basic principles of system management which are fundamental to successful management of large systems. They were developed from my 25 years of experience in managing large programming systems in IBM and are the principles I would follow when managing a product or system. While the paper is oriented towards the management of large programming systems, the principles are generally applicable to the management of any large system. The list of principles is not in priority order, but are grouped first by principles dealing with requirements followed by a collection of principles dealing with the management process.