The Art of Project Management

7.1. What specifications can and cannot do

Specifications, like vision documents, are a form of communication. When used effectively, they convey important information in a simple and easy-to-consume way. When used poorly, they are hard to read, tedious to create, and frustrating for everyone who comes into contact with them. Often, teams that write lousy specs seem to need more of them (as in, "If wolves come in packs, specs come in plagues"). Most of the time, weak or failed specifications come from a misunderstanding about what specifications are capable of and what they can't possibly achieve.

Here's a list of the important things specs can do for a project:

• Effectively describe the functionality of what will be built

• Help designers to clarify decisions by forcing them to be specific

• Allow the review, questioning, and discussion of detailed plans before full implementation begins

• Communicate information from one to many

• Create a team-wide point of reference for specific plans (and if drafted during the design phase, use it as a living documentation of what's going on(1))

• Provide a natural schedule milestone to focus the team

• Create insurance against the author(s) getting hit by a bus(2)

• Accelerate, improve, and increase the frequency of healthy discussions

• Give leaders an opportunity to give feedback and set the quality bar

• Add sanity and confidence to the team (and author)

Things specs cannot or should not do:

• Eliminate all discussions between team members

• Prove to the team how smart ...