> Software Design Intent document Sounds like a good way to nip the creative aspect in the bud. Sure, if a client comes to a software vendor with a clear plan

> Software Design Intent document Sounds like a good way to nip the creative aspect in the bud. Sure, if a client comes to a software vendor with a clear plan, draw up good specs, requirements etc. before doing any design (or coding). Or code a quick 'n dirty proof of concept solely to hash out what exactly those requirements are. Same with existing codebase if you want to add feature X and scope of that is well defined. But I suspect quite a few applications / projects / websites / tech startups / software libraries have started life with a "hey, that's neat. Let's take X, glue onto Y, tinker & play with it, see what we can do with that". Small / cheap 1st iterations don't involve much wasted effort anyway. Worst case = 0 useful code but you have learned something. When utility has shown & you get a sense of where you want it to go, then bring in the design aids for a proper v1.x, 2.x etc.