A friend of mine recently asked me this question:
My immediate reaction was: “How do I respond? People have literally written books about this.” I asked him to clarify with a few more details so I could direct my response accordingly.
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- This is a lot clearer and more actionable. Rather than adding to the noise and writing a whole book about it, as a Tim Feris fan, I figured I’d create The 4-Week Project Checklist:
Length: The architecture doc we’ll prepare should be 1-3 pages and no more.
Purpose: Write 1-2 sentences describing the purpose of the project.
Goals: Make a list of 5 bullet points or less listing out the goals and/or deliverables.
Non-goals: Make a list of 3 bullet points or less explicitly listing out the non-goals and/or deliverables.
Block diagram: Create a block diagram showing the different architectural components involved.
Sequence diagram: Create a sequence diagram showing the end-to-end flow of the data/user/application/etc.
APIs: List out any interfaces that are used or to be developed, with explicit documenting of key parameters involved.
Supporting text: Add supporting text in paragraph form only if it cannot be described in the diagrams above.
References: Include 1-3 external references where the reader can learn more. Do not make this a link dump.
Thank you @P1erreM for continuing to ask hard questions and providing feedback on this list.
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