Software Engineering Design Documents

Overview

A software design document is an extremely important part of the software development effort. While not every development work item / stream necessarily entails a design document, engineering leaders should foster a culture where software engineers organically are able to make a judgement call on when to write a design document. A design document allows for ideas to be fleshed out in a more formal and a transparent manner. It allows for stakeholders to review and respond and to document feedback for future reference. Design documents can in some cases also act as feeders for technical / architectural documents.

This post provides a template for software design document.

Template

Title

A short title summarizing the design document.

Problem Statement

Background

Motivation and Context

Discussion of the technical and/or business requirements / use-cases that was the motivation for this decision.

Use Cases / User Stories

This should typically point to a Product document and/or user stories in the Product backlog. But its is OK to provide a brief summary.

Functional Requirements

PSR[1] Requirements

PSR should be a first class citizen for all development efforts.

Goals

Proposal

Include any architecture / timing / sequence / component diagrams, data models, user flows, examples, code samples, etc.

Key Takeaways

Potential Trade-offs and Risks

Any short-term and/or long-term trade-offs and risks.

Alternatives

List of any alternatives that were considered with their pros and cons.

Potential Future Work

Summary

Next Steps

Who will implement, who is responsible for review, which team, etc.

References / Further Reading