An automated software process for acquiring and distributing information regarding design guidelines relevant to developers of a software system. The system supports developer decisions regarding design guidelines for operational characteristics, such as "points of variability" (POV), of a system under development. Operational characteristics of the system under development are "profiled" through answers to questions reflecting the high level system design. The collected answers indicate a category of operational characteristics associated with a design guideline. A developer obtains the design guidelines appropriate for a given operational characteristic when the answers entered by the developer with regard to that operational characteristic are used to determine one of the elements in the category array. Technical leadership establishes a high-level system design, and determines questions leading to design guidelines for categories of operational characteristics of the system. The design guidelines may then be conveniently accessed by the developer.