When building a new product or feature, it’s important to think through the problem we’re solving, and to try to solve it in a way that is easy to understand and maintain.
This is an example of a feature design doc that I’ve used in the past. It’s based on the Google “Green Doc” template, but with some additional context and a checklist of tasks.
While it’s important at any startup to ship features, not write docs, it’s a great way to get early buy-in from stakeholders, and to ensure that you’re thinking through the problem and solution in a way that is easy to understand and maintain. If done right, it’ll increase velocity and reduce rework.
Find the template below:
Quick overview of the problem we’re solving.
Quick overview of the solution, include background and context if needed
How will we know we’re done? Make a checklist of tasks.
Any other ideas on how to solve this problem? This is useful to the reader to understand how broadly you’re thinking about the problem and proposed solution.
What problems did we decide were out of scope here (add notes here as you chew on the problem, and this will help you on v2/v3 etc)
Additional background information, or references to other docs.