Source material: {list every document, transcript, call} Written: {date} · Last revised: {date}
Problem
{The client's own words, quoted. Then one sentence of your reading of the problem underneath it — labelled as your reading, not theirs.}
Success metric
| Metric | Baseline | Target | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| {primary} | {or UNRESOLVED} | {or UNRESOLVED} | {who said so} |
Secondary / guardrail metrics: {what must not get worse}
Users and jobs
| Who | The job they're hiring this for | How we know |
|---|
Constraints
| Constraint | Kind | Confirmed by |
|---|---|---|
| platform / data / integration / compliance / timeline / team |
Unconfirmed constraints needing an engineer: {list}
Assumption register
Sorted by cost of being wrong, descending.
| # | Assumption | Owner | Cost if wrong | Cheap to test? | Status |
|---|
The three questions
1. 2. 3.
Out of scope
{Named explicitly, so nobody is surprised in week eight.}
Open — unresolved
{Everything you could not determine from the material. An honest gap beats a guess.}