When we start working on any project, its tempting to dive straight in coding. The excitement of building something very quickly, especially when we are familiar with the tools, often leads up to skip essential steps like system design. However, over a time, I have learned about How crucial it is to carefully design a system before jumping in to development. I have been involved in multiple projects, analysing requirements and designing system based on these needs. Skipping this process can lead in a range of problems, which I will discuss here.
With this blog, I want to take you through the importance of system design, some of the benefits, potential problems when it's skipped, and what different prospectives - developers, clients and stakeholders - bring to the table. I will also share some real life sample design to illustrate my points.

Why System Design

System design is like the blueprint for building a house. You wouldn't built a house without a plan. so, why build an application without a solid design? The design ensures that the architecture is scalable, maintainable and meets the project requirements. Here's is the details why system design is important.

1. Clear Roadmap: It offers a clear path for both developers and stakeholders. It tells developer what we need to build and gives the client and stakeholders a concreate understanding of what the final product look like.
2. Scalability: A well designed application or system is flexible and can scale with the growth of data, users and functionalities. In the real world, application often expand beyond their initial scope, and good design can ensures system can handle that.
3. Risk Mitigation: When you design a system properly, you identify potential issues early on. The proactive approach reduces the risk of expensive rework later in the project.
4. Collaboration and Communication: Design facilitate better communication between teams. It aligns everyone on the same page - whether you'er a developer, client or project manager.

Problem when we ignore design:
Skipping or Ignoring system design can lead to numerous challenges during the project lifecycle. Here are few that I have come across.

• Unclear Requirements: Without a design, developers often work based on assumptions. This leads to misunderstandings, which result in functionality that doesn't align with client expectations.
• Rework and Delays: A lack of design often means going back to fix things. This not only delays the project but can result it in increasing project cost.
• Technical Debt: When system aren't designed properly from the beginning, t he quick fixes used to compensate add to technical debt. Over time, this slows down the application and increase the mainteinance.

Benefits of Proper System Design
On the other hand solid design provides numerous advantages:

• Efficiency: With a clear design, development become more efficient because everyone knows exactly what they need to build.
• Predictable Outcomes: With a blue print in hand, you can predict more accurately what the final outcome will look like.
• Easier Maintenance: A well thought - out design makes future updates and maintenance simpler because the structure of code is cleaner.

Sample System Designs
Let me share a couple of system design samples that I have been working on.
Data Ingestion Flow

This flow illustrate the design of data ingestion pipeline. We designed this flow to fetch data from FTP server, process them on VM using automated PowerShell script and push the incremental back up data to SQL Database.
Why this design: We needed an automation solution that could handle daily backups without manual intervention. The design ensures the scalability of the pipeline and handles incremental updates to avoid redundant data processing.

Perspective of System Design

• Clients Perspective: Clients appreciate seeing a system design because it gives them a clear visual representation of how their application will work. Its easier for them to provide feedback before development starts, which minimizes last minutes changes.
• Developer's Perspective: A developer, I can say a well-documented design simplifies the coding process. It removes ambiguity, which helps in avoiding unnecessary confusion or mistakes. With a design in hand, you know what your starting point is and what a end goal looks like.
• Stakeholder's Perspective: For a stakeholders and third parties, system design ensures transparency. It provides a level of trust that the project is being developed thoughtfully and will meet their needs in terms of both functionality and scalability.

Conclusion:
System design is backbone of any successful project. It aligns everyone involved in the project, mitigates risks and ensures the application is built to scale efficiently. Whenever you're working on small internal tool or a large-scale enterprise application, never underestimate the power of good system design.

Recommended Reading:
Clean Architecture: by Robert C. Martin