What goes into a good solution proposal or technical design document for a customer?

30-second answerSay your answer out loud first, then reveal.

A clear problem statement and goals (in business terms), scope and non-goals, the proposed solution with an architecture and data-flow diagram, how it integrates with their systems, security and compliance handling, the evaluation plan and success metrics, risks and mitigations, the timeline with milestones and the customer's responsibilities, and the operating model after launch. Write it for both executives (a one-page summary) and engineers (detailed sections).

Structure

Executive summary (half a page): problem, solution, expected impact, timeline, asks.
Background and goals: current process, pain points with numbers, success metrics.
Scope: in scope / out of scope / future phases.
Solution design: architecture diagram, components, model choices and rationale, HITL points.
Data and integrations: sources, access method, sync frequency, permissions.
Security and compliance: data flow, storage, retention, providers and regions, audit.
Evaluation plan: eval set, metrics, acceptance thresholds.
Risks and mitigations: e.g. data quality, adoption, model errors, timeline dependencies.
Plan: milestones, owners, customer dependencies (SME hours, access dates).
Operations: monitoring, support model, handover, costs.

Tips: use the customer's vocabulary; state assumptions explicitly; include decision points ("If the POC accuracy is < 80%, we will...").

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What goes into a good solution proposal or technical design document for a customer?

Structure

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