Solution design template




















This step is crucial in eliminating any avoidable future rework due to poor design. Have trouble getting those effort estimations right? Software estimation can be complicated when factors such as employee skill levels are factored in. We have prepared a full guide to assist you through the process. In large, complex, and mission-critical solutions conducting an Impact Analysis exercise will help you mitigate the risk of dangerous side effects. It will help you determine those features that have been impacted by the change and will need to be tested for regression problems.

The SD should answer those questions by performing an impact analysis on the anticipated code changes. A bidirectional traceability matrix is an excellent tool for achieving precisely that. Risk generally comes from project unknowns such as changing requirements or adverse side effects. Use the impact analysis to evaluate and mitigate any risk early on in the project. Use your expert knowledge to determine whether any risk when deploying the changes to production is anticipated.

Designing a proper solution helps you deliver an application that the customer wants to use. Customers are usually happy to compensate you for your efforts if they can derive value from your products. Therefore, your products must address their business needs. Customer needs are usually communicated in the form of business requirements. These can be viewed as multiple and often conflicting constraints.

Designing a solution is essentially an optimization process whereby a solution designer or architect finds a technological solution that offers maximum value at the lowest cost. The best and most familiar example of project constraints is time and money. The customer typically wants top value delivered within a specific budget and timeframe.

A solution design document brings all these constraints together in one place and allows you to understand the mutual impact from one another. The above diagram shows the solution design process with inputs, outputs and external requirements and constraints. Some external constraints like security or compliance might be catered for already within the business requirements documents.

In some cases, however, an industry-grade application is expected to conform to regulatory requirements and industry best practices without explicitly listing them in any business requirements document. Alternatively, clients can use Epics and User Stories when practising Agile. Buying new hardware is always such a project because it usually requires budgeting and many approvals.

In addition to that, many departments such as accounting, management, procurement will be involved. Hardware is Not Just Servers! It can also be specialized equipment, network components, cabling, racks, licenses, support, administration, and significantly extra space in the data centre.

Be sure to include a generous amount of detail on the hardware setup. Also, cover all your environments from development to UAT, and finally, production.

Future-proofing in technology is never guaranteed. We can, however, do our best to ensure that what is implemented today is flexible, modular, and scalable enough to accommodate any potential changes in load, performance requirements , and new features. These properties are essential if you want your application to live for a long time, maximizing your ROI.

To achieve this, do what you can to ensure that the new design does not burden the system with unnecessary constraints. Most clients automatically assume that the vendor follows industry best practices for design, development, and testing.

Unfortunately, this is not always true. Give the reader some information on the internal development processes you intend to follow. Mention essential steps such as code review and test plan preparations. Finally, let the client know how to reach you for support and how you typically address quality issues. This will make the support process clear and efficient. Heavily regulated industries such as insurance, health, and payments need to remain on top of their regulatory requirements. It is possible to have compliance updates so huge as to warrant their own project.

If you work in similar industries, be sure to include any security and compliance details in your analysis and design. Imagine that your credit card suddenly stops working because it is not supported on the latest software version, which was deployed yesterday! To avoid any drama during production rollout, perform a detailed analysis of the impact on downstream systems. More crucially, look for any potential backward compatibly problems.

Once you have done that, you can use the results to limit the scope of your testing while maintaining good coverage. Mission-critical systems typically require an uptime of Businesses allow these systems to go down for scheduled maintenance and upgrades, and this means that any design fault can become a significant pain during go-live.

We already talked about the contents of the design document. The idea is to follow industry best practices and guidelines for technical documentation. In this section, we present five pillars that can guide you through the writing process.

Identifying the audience of any technical document is the most significant step in the writing process as it will drive the contents of the document. In the context of software development, the audience might include business analysts, technical staff such as developers, testers, DevOps engineers, and project managers.

Excellent technical documentation addresses each audience segment in a language they understand. Find out what the audience is expecting from this document. Make sure there is a section in the beginning that anybody can read.

Call it Overview or Executive Summary. This introductory section will help the reader determine whether or not this document is helpful for them. The SD should be a one-stop shop for the solution design. It needs to cover the system front-to-end. But more importantly, the solution design specifies which changes are in scope, and which are not.

Unclear requirements are the 1 cause for IT project failures. Only revisit scoping when absolutely necessary to prevent scope creep. This way, you guarantee that all requirements are covered.

A good SD will detail the impact on the whole ecosystem allowing project managers from both sides to have a holistic and full view of the landscape paving the way for everybody to buy in. Software is a complex business and the SDD should try to untangle as much of that complexity as possible. Technical documentation should not contain ambiguous statements that can be interpreted differently.

Being precise in your words shows the reader that you are fluent in the topic. It also serves to build that level of confidence required for successful projects. This can only lead to deferring design decisions to the development phase and having to design on the fly. It is fairly accurate but not very precise.

By having a definite position on every question, there will be no escape routes when things go wrong. This strategy ensures commitment from everyone. The best way to evaluate clarity and completeness is by getting early feedback from collaborators and stakeholders.

Having said that, it should not try to replicate information that can be obtained easily from other sources. Also, it should not aim at replacing the functional specs of any of the constituent products. A good test for comprehensiveness can be as follows: if the author decides to leave on a two-week vacation, can work resume smoothly and efficiently for the entire period of her absence?

As with any piece of technical documentation, the quantity and relevance of the presented information ultimately decide its usefulness and accessibility.

Integration and Network Design Applies to an IT systems design where the underlying communications network must be defined. Define the conceptual aspects of network or integration mechanisms required to interconnect components. The Component Model addresses interface mechanisms, principally from an application or service level perspective. Here is included additional information relating to the communication mechanisms, protocols or network models.

Typically, details of this subsection are further developed as part of the Integration Specification. Both functional and non-functional characteristics of integration and network behaviour should be included. How will users authenticate to the system, describe detailed password rules. Describe where external authentication infrastructure is being used, eg account Describe the categories of users and the functionality they will have. Describe what will be logged and describe any external auditing or logging platforms being used.

How are authentication credentials issued and reset? Will approval processes for user access be developed, if so by whom? Solution Architecture Requirements The purpose of this section is to define the specific, well-formed requirements for impacted systems, and partition them in a manner that will facilitate design definition.

When creating Architectural Requirements, each verifiable requirement defined in this section should be contained in a separate paragraph. The source of all raw requirements should be captured in the Requirements Traceability Matrix, along with the cross-reference to the labelled requirements in this section. Design Description 9. If a specification document has been referenced in this section, ensure the relevant document has been attached in the appendix section of this document. This would include strategy for migration from existing processes and systems, as well as data migration considerations.

Typically this section will define phases of implementation that would minimise the impact on business operation whilst providing additional business value with each phase. This plan should address the overall approach to implementation of the new architecture and complement the details written in section 6 Implementation and Migration.

List Dependencies This section should contain any dependencies of the plan from the section above. All issues and risks identified should be managed via the [Company] issues and risk management processes. All Assumptions of this plan and dependencies should list listed in the section Architectural Risks and Assumptions. Requirement — [Function 1 Title].

Flow of Step Events s of the requi reme nt. If the user cann ot be identi fied the soluti on will notify admi n. The soluti on auto matic ally save s the sessi on settin gs. Pre- What conditio are ns the requi reme nts for this flow chart to run, list of condi tions.

User has acce ss rights. User has been adde d to the list of users …. Post What Conditio state ns the soluti on is in after the proc ess runs eg: User has acce ss to the appli catio n accor.

Any dom ain speci fic know ledge or algori thms or valid ation rules rele vant to this use- case eg. After three unsu cces sful atte mpts at log in the soluti on will lock the user.

Related This Flow is Chart or optio Process nal. Eg: user nam e and pass word will be the same as for their staff acco unt. Table 10 - Functional Requirements. The soluti on will reco gnise. Pre- What conditio are ns the requi reme nts for this flow chart to run, list of condi tions that shoul d exist befor e the proc ess can be exec uted eg: User has a runni ng drift. Post What Conditio state ns the soluti on is in after the proc ess runs eg: User has acce ss to the appli catio n accor ding to his privil eges User Refer Interface ence to UI proto type or speci fic scree n and UI relat.

After three unsu cces sful atte mpts at log in the soluti on will lock the user out and notify sys admi n. Any quest ions relat ed to the Flow Chart Referenc Requ es irem ent , Docu ment s, Pers ons Notes Any notes whic h may help to clarif y the proc ess and avail able infor matio n or optio ns for comp letion of the task.

Table 11 - Functional Requirements. Outline the performance capabilities and constraints of the solution. If an application is to be modified, indicate here if any data conversions are required on existing data records. Definitions The following words, acronyms and abbreviations are referred to in this document. Term Definition. Open navigation menu. Close suggestions Search Search.

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Is this content inappropriate? Report this Document. Description: Solution Design Template. Flag for inappropriate content. Download now. Related titles. Carousel Previous Carousel Next. Jump to Page. Search inside document. The problem of Affects The impact of which is A successful solution would 4. Inclusions 2. Exclusions 3. Phasing if required 2.

Table 6 -Key Architectural Issues 2. Architectural Risks and Assumptions Key architectural risks and assumptions are as follows: NB, risks to be managed by project risk management Risk Assumption System s Impacted Description Identify system s impacted by system name as described in this AR — 01 document Eg.

Forecasting Portal 7. In IBM terms - the operations model 5. Describe what will be logged and describe any external auditing or logging platforms being used 2. Architecture Migration Plan 1. Table 10 - Functional Requirements The above grid is to be used for every function identified. If needed copy flow chart from BRD into this section of the document.

Outputs 3. Screens 4. Reports 5. Table 11 - Functional Requirements The above grid is to be used for every function identified.

Outputs 7. Screens Data 2. Applications Colours 2. Look and Feel 3.



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