brainstorming

To turn a vague feature request into an approved design spec, use a structured brainstorming process that reviews project context, asks iterative clarifying questions, and proposes approaches with tradeoffs before writing a spec.

The best way to analyze tradeoffs during product discovery is to evaluate a small set of proposed approaches against your project constraints, clearly explaining the tradeoffs and recommending a specific direction before proceeding.

An approval workflow helps structure UI decisions by presenting the design in sections and waiting for explicit validation, ensuring an approved written design document is produced only after all requirements and tradeoffs are reviewed.

Yes, you can use this brainstorming process for requirements clarification on small feature changes, as it applies to behavior changes, UI decisions, and other creative work needing constraints surfaced and tradeoff analysis.

You need to clarify requirements one question at a time to iteratively refine the purpose and success criteria, reducing assumptions and scope drift before any implementation planning or design specification work begins.