Technical Dimensions Checklist

This reference provides a comprehensive framework for identifying missing technical details in product documents. Use this to systematically analyze requirements across all critical dimensions.

Data & State Management

Data Models

• What entities/objects are involved?
• What are the attributes and their types?
• What are the relationships between entities?
• What is the cardinality (one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many)?
• Are there constraints (uniqueness, nullability, validation rules)?
• What is the data lifecycle (creation, updates, deletion, archival)?

State Management

• What state needs to be tracked?
• Where does state live (client, server, database, cache)?
• How does state change over time?
• What triggers state transitions?
• Are there state conflicts to resolve?
• What happens during partial failures?

Data Sources & Sinks

• Where does data originate?
• Where does data need to flow to?
• Are there external data dependencies?
• What data needs to be synchronized across systems?
• What are the data retention requirements?

Interfaces & Integration

APIs & Endpoints

• What are the API operations (read, write, delete)?
• What are the request/response formats?
• What are the authentication/authorization requirements?
• What are the rate limits or quotas?
• Are there pagination requirements?
• What error responses should be returned?

System Integration

• What systems need to integrate?
• What is the integration pattern (sync, async, event-driven)?
• What happens when external systems are unavailable?
• Are there data transformation requirements?
• What is the retry/fallback strategy?

User Interfaces

• What are the user interaction flows?
• What inputs are required from users?
• What validation happens on input?
• What feedback is provided to users?
• What are the accessibility requirements?
• What device types/form factors are supported?

Performance & Scale

Volume & Load

• What is the expected data volume?
• What is the expected number of users/requests?
• What is the expected growth rate?
• Are there usage spikes or patterns?
• What is the acceptable latency for operations?

Performance Requirements

• What are the response time targets?
• What are the throughput requirements?
• Are there batch processing needs?
• What operations must be real-time vs eventual consistency?
• What are the resource constraints (memory, CPU, storage)?

Scalability

• How should the system scale (horizontal, vertical)?
• What are the scaling triggers?
• Are there autoscaling requirements?
• What is the expected lifespan of the feature?

Security & Privacy

Authentication & Authorization

• Who can access this feature?
• What are the permission levels?
• How are users authenticated?
• What authorization checks are needed?
• Are there role-based access controls?
• What audit logging is required?

Data Protection

• What data is sensitive or PII?
• What encryption is required (at rest, in transit)?
• Are there data residency requirements?
• What data can be cached and for how long?
• Are there data anonymization needs?
• What are the GDPR/compliance requirements?

Security Threats

• What are the potential attack vectors?
• What input validation is needed?
• Are there rate limiting requirements?
• What security monitoring is needed?

Reliability & Operations

Error Handling

• What can go wrong?
• How should errors be handled?
• What error messages should users see?
• What should be logged for debugging?
• Are there cascading failure scenarios?

Availability & Durability

• What is the uptime requirement (SLA)?
• What happens during planned maintenance?
• How is data backed up?
• What is the disaster recovery plan?
• Are there geographic redundancy requirements?

Monitoring & Observability

• What metrics should be tracked?
• What alerts should be configured?
• What debugging information is needed?
• How will success be measured?
• What dashboards are needed?

Operational Concerns

• How is the feature deployed?
• What is the rollout strategy (gradual, feature flags)?
• How can the feature be rolled back?
• What configuration is needed?
• Are there maintenance procedures?

Business Logic & Rules

Business Rules

• What are the business rules and constraints?
• Are there exceptions to the rules?
• How should edge cases be handled?
• What validations are required?
• Are there workflow approvals needed?

Calculations & Algorithms

• What calculations are performed?
• What formulas or algorithms are used?
• What is the precision/rounding behavior?
• Are there regulatory requirements for calculations?

Workflows & Processes

• What is the step-by-step process?
• What are the decision points?
• What happens at each step?
• Who is notified and when?
• What are the timeout/expiration rules?

Dependencies & Constraints

Technical Dependencies

• What libraries/frameworks are required?
• What external services are needed?
• What infrastructure is required?
• Are there version compatibility requirements?
• What are the licensing constraints?

Ordering & Timing

• What is the sequence of operations?
• Are there dependencies between steps?
• What is time-sensitive?
• Are there deadlines or timeouts?
• What happens if timing is violated?

Backwards Compatibility

• What existing functionality is affected?
• How do we handle existing data?
• What migration is needed?
• What is the deprecation strategy?
• Are there API versioning needs?

User Experience & Behavior

User Expectations

• What does the user expect to happen?
• What should happen when nothing matches?
• What defaults should be set?
• What options are configurable?
• What help/documentation is needed?

Edge Cases & Boundaries

• What happens with empty data?
• What happens with maximum data?
• What happens with invalid input?
• What happens with concurrent operations?
• What happens with stale data?

Localization & Internationalization

• What content needs translation?
• Are there locale-specific formats (dates, numbers)?
• What timezones are involved?
• Are there regional regulations?

Testing & Validation

Test Scenarios

• What are the happy path scenarios?
• What are the failure scenarios?
• What edge cases need testing?
• What performance tests are needed?
• What security tests are needed?

Acceptance Criteria

• How do we know it works correctly?
• What defines "done"?
• What are the success metrics?
• What data validates the feature?