4 Design document
This chapter covers
- Reviewing the most common myths around the design document
- Defining antigoals for even sharper focus on core objectives
- Drafting a design document based on the information available
- Reviewing a design document
- The evolution of design docs
Once you have defined the problem your system should solve, as well as a list of stakeholders, and already have a rough understanding of what technologies and solutions would be most appropriate for the product, as described in Chapter 3, it is time to prepare a design document.
It is worth noting here that there is no set-in-stone order of actions at the early stage of creating an ML system. You can start preparing a design document as soon as you’ve identified the problem and goals (especially if you work in a startup, where the speed of delivery is times more important than following processes). But since this book is presented as a checklist, the list of actions is also displayed in a traditional sequence.
As one of the authors’ manager once said, no fancy recommendation algorithm could beat a customer with a shopping list. These people have a goal and a plan for achieving it. Nothing can stop them.