A combination of my own methodology and the Web Application Hacker's Handbook Task checklist, as a Github-Flavored Markdown file
Picking the right architecture = Picking the right battles + Managing trade-offs
- Clarify and agree on the scope of the system
- User cases (description of sequences of events that, taken together, lead to a system doing something useful)
- Who is going to use it?
- How are they going to use it?