For a design document to be comprehensive, and to actually meet the needs of the project rather than just being a piece of paper written to meet a statutory process need such as ISO and CMM, the design document needs to have a correct format, and be well understood by the team members who are going to be writing it as well as the team members who are going to be using it.
You can find many document formats in many books and internet locations, so I am not going to be giving a new format. Instead, I will showcase an outline of the design document that presents the basic points that need to be filled, and then present a few links where templates of the software design document can be found. All of them will be roughly similar, so you can select the one that best seems to meet your process and then use it.
Outline of the software design document:
1. Introduction
2. System Overview
3. Design Considerations
? Assumptions and Dependencies
? General Constraints
? Goals and Guidelines
? Development Methods
4. Architectural Strategies
? strategy-1 name or description
? strategy-2 name or description
? …
5. System Architecture
? component-1 name or description
? component-2 name or description
? …
6. Policies and Tactics
? policy/tactic-1 name or description
? policy/tactic-2 name or description
? …
7. Detailed System Design
? module-1 name or description
? module-2 name or description
? …
8. Glossary
9. Bibliography
Links for some URL’s where you can find a template of software design document
Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5, Link 6
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