How to write a doc for a feature/product? | Aryan Agarwal

How to write a doc for a feature/product?

The 3 Ws (and 1 H) that should be asked of every project:

1. Who
2. Why
3. What
4. How

While writing a spec doc for a feature/product we should always keep in mind that Everything should be defined based on the user's perspective.

Purpose starts with "who".

First define who, then explain why, then what, then how.

All documents must do this, but in different levels of detail depending on whether the focus is on who or why or what or how.

For example, a document that is more about what so who, why, and how will be minimal. But they should all be there to set the context.

Who & why should target market.

What should target product/features?

How should target technical/implementation.

One line each is okay for every section, with most of the content related to the document's purpose. But including other sections, sets the context for the primary section.

The subject is an actual feature that the “who” experiences which is why it’s what.

Why - Motivation of the Who.

What needs to be improved even more given the why.

Think of further improvements in What that are possible, such that Why can be achieved even more.

Then organize these different aspects of What point wise, group them based on the why and who (to an extent this is how it’s been currently organized also).

These What points become the acceptance criteria for QA to check against when the implementation is completed.

What also needs to define edge cases and additional scenarios that are expected.

Define all these scenarios as well within the What section clearly and point-wise before defining the actual What.

How should cover how things are done in the background or implementation-wise — aspects not visible to who.

How should also be evaluated:

1. Based on the impact on other features
2. Performance and robustness of the implementation (when can it break?) — how can it recover from failure?
3. Scalability of the implementation — limits of the implementation, at what point will it fail?

Using these 3 Ws (and 1 H) strategies we can define any complex or easy feature/product.

Checkout my other interesting spaces at:

• https://fifo.im/+glue_labs_engineering
• https://fifo.im/+full_stack_development

Thanks for reading out! Hope you have a nice day.