factor10 Solution Designer

Field notes

Exports

The tool is not the final delivery itself. What actually moves on (to a customer, a leadership group, a contract or a git repo) are the artefacts that get generated. On the Exports tab you choose what is to be included: a coherent PDF with the whole solution documentation, suited for reading, or a separate Markdown file per selected tab as input to a codebase.

 

PDF

The PDF is designed to be "left behind", and if the solution has a public link it is shown as a QR code on the PDF. The thought is that even if a solution is not taken forward immediately, the PDF is a trace for somebody to find later. That person might get interested and want to pick up the thread again. Things like that have happened more than once. :)

 

MD-files

When the solution has been discussed and iterated together to a certain point, there might be a decision to move forward. Rather than refining the information in the solution, it is better to get started with your ordinary development tools then. To get a kick start, export the interesting tabs as md-files and import them as initial documentation in your code repository.

It is like yet another perspective swap, and you will surely find things to revisit. But at the same time, you start from a much higher level than zero.