Introduction

Hi, I’m Adjoa — an engineer at Tokyo ICT.

Recently, I had the opportunity to take part in the system outline design phase for the first time in a large-scale project. In this post, I’d like to share what I learned from that experience.

If you’re curious about what engineers actually do in system development, I hope this gives you a clearer picture.

1. Project Overview

The project was about renewing a credit card business system. The requirements definition phase had already been completed when our company joined.

Our team took over during the outline design phase, and I was assigned as one of the design engineers.

2. What Is “Outline Design”?

In system development, the outline design phase is where you take the requirements defined earlier and translate them into a concrete system structure.

The main purpose of the outline design document is to make sure both the client and the development team share the same understanding of how the system will work — before moving on to detailed design and implementation.

Once the client approves the outline design document, the project proceeds to the next step: basic design.

3. What I Worked on in the Outline Design Document

In this project, each engineer was responsible for several functions. I was assigned five of them. My work mainly consisted of writing the outline design documents for those functions.

Here’s what they included:

(1) Function Overview

Since we created one document per function, I started each one by describing who uses it, when, in what context, and how.

(2) Screen Transition Diagrams

These diagrams show how users move from one screen to another — for example, which screen opens when a certain button is clicked.
I also listed the APIs, database tables, and external interfaces used in each transition.

(3) Business Rules

In this context, business rules define conditional behaviors — such as showing or hiding buttons depending on user type. For instance: “Display the ‘Edit’ button for Gold members, but hide it for Standard members.” I identified all such conditions and made the branching logic as clear as possible.

(4) Screen Layouts and Field Descriptions

For each function, I created mock screen layouts and explained the purpose and data source of every field.
Example:

• Member Name: Displayed from Member Table.name
• Edit Button: Navigates to the “Edit Confirmation” screen

(Note: The items above were part of our project’s design template, but not necessarily required in every project.)

4. Challenges I Faced

At first, I thought my job was to “design exactly as written in the requirements.” So I confidently submitted my first design document — only to be hit by a wave of review feedback.

The main reason? Requirements documents don’t always consider long-term maintenance or implementation complexity. If you simply follow them word for word, you might end up with something too complicated or inefficient to maintain.

That’s when I realized: the real purpose of the outline design phase is to bridge the gap between requirements and reality — to make the system practical and sustainable.

I also received questions like:

“How exactly will this branching logic work?”
“How do you pass the data between screens?”

Each question forced me to pause and think.
“Maybe I need to use session IDs?”
“I should review how React handles this…”
“I really don’t know enough yet.”

It was humbling — and incredibly educational.

5. What I Focused On

Since I felt my technical knowledge was still limited, I decided that at least the quality of my documentation had to be top-notch.

Here are a few things I made sure to do:

• Ensured consistent terminology across the whole team
  (e.g., unified terms like “User” vs. “Member”)
• Kept diagrams perfectly aligned and evenly spaced — fixing them immediately rather than later
• Used our in-house AI tool to check for typos before each review
• Double-checked everything using the team’s official checklist

I repeated these checks even after finishing all five documents, to make sure everything met our quality standards.

6. What I Learned

Through this experience, I realized that design isn’t just about writing what’s in the requirements — it’s about thinking ahead to how the system will actually be implemented, operated, and maintained.

I also discovered that system design requires a surprisingly broad range of knowledge — from programming languages and databases to networks and security.

Most of all, I came to appreciate how deep and fascinating the “design” phase of software development really is.

If you’re considering joining Tokyo ICT as an intern or new engineer, I hope this story gives you a glimpse into what we do — and how much you can grow through real project experience.

When I first started my internship, I found it quite challenging—both adjusting to working in an office environment and adapting to Japanese work culture. However, I received a lot of support, which helped me overcome these hurdles. Thanks to this, I was able to develop a network analysis tool for the company—my proudest achievement so far in my software development journey.

I’ll miss the wonderful places, the delicious food, and the amazing people I’ve met here. If you’re thinking about coming to Japan for an internship, I highly encourage you to give it a try as it’s a amazing experience you won’t regret!

Hello! Today, we’d like to share our experience participating in the 2025 spring training program for new employees, where members of our team once again served as instructors.

At our company, many of our members are former Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV), and we regularly draw on that teaching experience to support IT companies with their annual new employee training. Continuing from last year, two of our team members, O and K, participated as assistant instructors again in 2025.

The training program lasted for about two and a half months and covered a wide range of topics, including:

• Basic business skills
• Fundamental knowledge of databases and networks
• Programming basics
• System development exercises, and more

What Does an Assistant Instructor Do?

An assistant instructor’s role goes far beyond just supporting the lead trainer. As someone who directly supports the growth of each trainee, the assistant instructor answers questions during exercises and provides feedback on business etiquette and professional attitude.

One of the most rewarding aspects of this role is being able to witness the trainees’ growth and transformation up close through direct communication.

Inspired by the Dedication of New Employees

Once again, we were deeply inspired by the trainees this year.

• They took feedback seriously, made detailed notes, and acted quickly to improve.
• Many came in early to proactively tackle their assignments.
• After hours, they stayed late to ask questions and deepen their understanding.

Seeing their dedication reminded us that we need to keep pushing ourselves too. Their attitude motivated us to continue learning and improving.

In Closing

Supporting the development of future engineers is not just rewarding — it’s a learning opportunity for us as well.

We’ll continue to refine our skills through teaching and strive to provide even better services in the future.

At this time, I tried using “Airtable”. It’s a web-based tool that can be used without installation by signing up.

Airtable official page

You can create tables with fairly easy operation.

Import from Excel and export to CSV are available

Register form

This is the first thing that impressed me.

You can create forms linked to tables on Airtable.
The forms include fields such as “Name” and “Birth_date”.
When the form is submitted, the data is automatically registered.

The URL of forms can be shared, allowingindividuals without Airtable account to respond.
That means that people other than the administrator can easily submit their data.

With paid plan, you can also customize the apperance of the forms.

Automation feature

Second thing that impressed me.

Airtable has an automation function that allows you define triggers and actions.
For example:
When data is created in a table (trigger) -> Send an email by using Gmail (action)

By integrating it with the form mentioned earlier, you can achieve:
Users submit the form, including their email address -> Data is created in the table automatically (trigger) -> An email is sent to the provided email address (action)

This enables seamless automation of data entry and email communication.

Various views

You can create multiple views with various types in a single table in Airtable.
By changing the view type, you can display data in a calendar format.
Additionally, by setting filters, you can selectively display data that meets specific criteria.

Available for free

The features mentioned above are available in the free plan. The free plan provides a comprehensive range of features that are sufficient for many use cases.

As your needs grow larger in scale, you may find it necessary to upgrade to a paid plan.

【Official】Plan Comparison

For smaller-scale data management, such as within a department, the free plan of Airtable may be sufficient.

The platform is not only easy to implement and use but also quite enjoyable.