> I'm a big fan of talking to people. The outcome of that talking may turn into documentation,
For any nontrivial design, it must. I expect that many people in this thread are coming from the Google (or Amazon?) perspective where a "design doc" is a formalization of a collaborative conversation. For small designs, it may be just a mild reformation of a set of meeting notes (you should take notes when you talk to people!). For larger projects, there's an iterative process where you start with a proposal that may be that, and get it reviewed and ensure you cover all the aspects that it will impact.
I've been on both he giving and receiving end of the "oh hey you may need to rethink this due to XYZ" at what was assumed to be late in the design process. THat's annoying, but much less annoying than spending 2 weeks or 2 months building a thing only to have to throw that effort away.
For any nontrivial design, it must. I expect that many people in this thread are coming from the Google (or Amazon?) perspective where a "design doc" is a formalization of a collaborative conversation. For small designs, it may be just a mild reformation of a set of meeting notes (you should take notes when you talk to people!). For larger projects, there's an iterative process where you start with a proposal that may be that, and get it reviewed and ensure you cover all the aspects that it will impact.
I've been on both he giving and receiving end of the "oh hey you may need to rethink this due to XYZ" at what was assumed to be late in the design process. THat's annoying, but much less annoying than spending 2 weeks or 2 months building a thing only to have to throw that effort away.