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Development of supplier-neutral requirement specifications
A specification sheet is the entirety of the economic, technical and organisational requirements for the delivery and services of a contractor within an order (DIN 69901) determined by the client. It is an essential prerequisite for the success of a project in order to meet both the agreed deadline and the calculated budget. A good specification sheet takes into account, among other things, all exceptions as well as special cases and does not leave any room for interpretation.
Typically, the specifications include the following essential aspects:
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Targets and specifications for the desired product
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required functions (MUST and WISH criteria)
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relevant technical data and contractual conditions
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Quality requirements
Typical mistakes:
- Process descriptions only refer to the main processes and not to secondary processes or exceptions.
- The effort required to create a specification sheet is underestimated and often has to be done "on the side" and under time pressure.
- The writer only has an "inside view".
- The writer of the specification sheet assumes that the reader has a lot of industry-specific knowledge or definitions of terms.
- Adjacent processes are not considered (logistics - manufacturing).
- Requirement specifications are not sufficiently discussed in the company with the specialist departments.
- There is a lot of irrelevant information in specification sheet (internal politics of the client).
- Different system understandings of the author and reader of the specification.
- No clear structure available.
- No clear definition of services.
It doesn't have to be!
At Dresden Informatik GmbH, we know specification sheets both as users and creators. This enables us to question critical aspects in a targeted manner when formulating specifications, avoid typical tripping hazards from the very start and formulate the specifications clearly and unambiguously for the client as well as the contractor.
We have a reliable process model for this:
- Multi-stage procedure, consisting of workshops, coordinated protocols, telephone conferences or iterative processing cycles
- Use of graphics and diagrams instead of plain text, for clear visualization of workflows
- Extensive definitions of terms and abbreviations to counteract different system understandings