Create functional design documents (FDD)

  • 4 minutes

Functional design documents (FDD) describe the planned features in customizations. The document can include things such as flowcharts, screenshots, and wire frames. It can also contain an organized list of requirements that can be used for development, testing, and client sign-off.

Benefits of functional design documents

The following are some of the benefits of functional design documents:

  • Help the development team to understand the feature and provide a clear scope and definition of what to develop. These documents streamline the development process, and the development team working on the feature has a clear understanding and answers to all their functionality-related questions before starting development. Because this document is approved by the customer, the developers only develop customizations and extensions that are approved.

    • The FDD is a work in progress, so you need to assign the development and QA teams to each functional area. This means that you need to engage them in reviewing the functional design and support the respective business analysts early on.
    • Extension is the only development model where the developer can use events and hooks within the application code to include additional functionalities without impacting the Microsoft code.
    • Try to adopt the standard functionality as much as possible while designing solutions.

  • Help the testing team to understand the feature under development and to develop a test plan around it.

  • Identify all the cross-functional requirements. The solution architect should lead them to suitable designs.

  • Provide the customer with a clear vision and definition of the feature being developed. Also, help the entire project team to be able to visualize and see the solution before it is built.

  • Provide the baseline of the training documentation for the application support team and business users.

Business requirement definition phase

In the definition phase of the project, the implementation team should address the following milestones:

  • The business scenarios and processes in a hierarchical format.
  • End-to-end process flows.
  • Use cases.
  • Business flows.
  • Solution blueprint.

After defining the scope, the implementation team should analyze each requirement in the analysis phase.

Solution analysis phase

In the analysis phase of the project, the implementation team should address the following milestones:

  • Fit/gap analysis.
  • Workarounds and customization options.
  • Build versus buy evaluation.
  • The SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis for workarounds and customizations/enhancements.

Solution design phase

In the design phase of the project, the implementation team should address the following milestones:

  • Out-of-the-box capabilities to fit the business processes of the solution.
  • Functional and technical designs for any gaps in the present solution.
  • End-to-end test scenarios for overall solution acceptance.
  • End-to-end for a business process area.
  • One or more test script(s) per requirement.
  • Future-state solution blueprint.

Prototyping

In the prototyping phase of the project, the implementation team should address the following milestones:

  • A prototype configuration of the business flow in finance and operations apps.
  • Sample data migration.
  • Demo data, task guides, and training videos.
  • Hands-on labs.

After the acceptance of the prototype, any gaps, interfaces, or reports can be assigned to the development team.

Development phase

In the development phase of the project, the implementation team should address the following milestones:

  • Development artifacts.
  • Entity relationship (ER).
  • Code.
  • Designs.

Testing and acceptance phase

In the testing phase of the project, the implementation team should address the following:

  • Test plan.
  • Test scenarios.
  • Test cases.
  • Issue logs.

Training phase

In the training phase of the project, the implementation team should address the following milestones:

  • Training manuals.
  • User/task guides.

Go-live phase

In the Go-live phase of the project, the implementation team should address the following milestones:

  • Cutover checklist.
  • Go-live readiness
  • Environment.
  • Access.
  • Communication mailers.

After a successful Go-live, it is important to continue the journey and keep reaping benefits from the business platform while keeping it healthy.

Support phase

In the support phase of the project, the implementation team should address the following milestones:

  • Support/maintenance plan.
  • Team that spans various levels of support needs.
  • Enhancement initiatives.
  • Good-to-have business needs.
  • Issues portal.
  • Ongoing training, roll out initiatives, and other kinds of assistance.

Resources

See Create a functional and technical design document, to learn how to create the functional documents.

There is a Template available to help you create the functional design document.