Part of Tecnova's requirements specification series -- helping businesses save money, time, and resources
When businesses develop a new product, defining its requirements is the most important phase of the entire project. As we explored in the last installment of our series on requirements specification, problems that occur in this phase have a ripple effect, causing expensive complications in manufacturing and even product defects. Identifying and fixing problems in specifications is the first step in a successful product launch.
To improve your business's requirements, it can help to look at the most common characteristics of poor ones. If you can name the problem, it becomes possible to solve it.
The Most Common Specifications Problems
Requirements experts Karl Wiegers and Donald Firesmith describe the attributes of poor specifications as:- Ambiguous – They have several different meanings or interpretations
- Not cohesive – They do not capture the needed functionality from the business, user, and data perspectives
- Incomplete – Simply, they don’t cover everything that needs to be addressed with the product or system solution
- Inconsistent – Parts of the requirements negate information in other requirements
- Incorrect – They relate to the operator or to other external factors and not to the product or system itself
- Out of date – They haven’t been updated since new needs have been identified or new functionality has been included
- Too technical – Requirements are not in the language of the end users or stakeholders, thus errors and misunderstandings occur
- Infeasible – They mandate functionality that cannot be implemented
- Not prioritized – Nice-to-have functionality is mixed in with must-have functionality
- Irrelevant – They provide for features that are not needed in the final solution
- Untraced – They are disorganized, making it difficult to determine how requirements are related to each other
- Not built with the stakeholder in mind – Requirements are written for use by the developer or engineer, without clear understanding of what the end user needs
- Unverifiable and not validated – They do not include verification approaches to determine whether the requirement is properly implemented in the solution
What Causes Poor Specifications To Be Written?
Nobody strives to write poor requirements specifications. There are many reasons that the above problems occur. Requirements engineers often are not adequately trained or do not have the right resources. In addition, engineers often do not have access to all the stakeholders or know how to elicit all the necessary information.
Indeed, the reasons for poor requirements specifications are great, and so are the consequences. You can set your next product or system development up for success by ensuring your requirements are effectively researched and written. Tecnova has a hands-on tool for clearly communicating hardware and systems specifications.
Download the Requirements Specification Template here.
