A technical specification is an important document of every business project which contains detailed information for the technical requirements. A project manager needs to get ready the business specifications before the project is even started.
The technical specification is shown to senior management, and the client of the project and changes should be made as per their requirements.
The purpose of the project is to follow the technical specifications and all requirements listed in the technical specifications must be met before the completion of the project.
Technical specifications are written in various scenarios and are now an important part of every small to a big business project.
For example, a business project is useful to be written when a client orders you to create a website or an app or software, or while buying a technical product, or allotting services of any type. A technical specification document contains all the requirements that a person desires from the project.
It is quite helpful when you are prepping a product from scratch. Take the example of a website when you receive an order to design a website.
First thing you want to know the vision of your client that how he wants to see his website when it will be finally ready. What should be the color and the design of the website?
If you don’t have these specifications mentioned, then you might end up doing less or more than what is exactly expected by your client and to learn more that why technical specifications are essential for a project let us learn about the importance of technical specifications.
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4 Importance of Technical Specifications
- First and foremost benefit of having a technical specification is that you will get a detailed layout that what you should work on. In this way, you will reduce the tie wasting and also cut the cost of the project.
- It makes it easy to assign the task to the members of the team. For example, when you have clear technical specifications, then your team can work without confusion and in harmony with one another, as they all will have clearly defined job roles.
- The technical specification also helps in the scalability of your product. Scalability of both team and infrastructure will be required if the project that you are working on is large. If you have these specifications mentioned before the beginning of the project, then it would be easy to make such changes.
- A well-defined technical specification reduces the chances of failure. That means you can plan very well, and the project developer would know clearly what to develop.
How to write a technical specification?
Step 1. List all the requirements
Make a simple list of specifications of the project. Eliminate all the additional requirements by discussing with your client and manager, and in the end, you will get the final list of specifications important for the project.
Step 2. Write the table of content
By writing a table of content first. A table of content is an important feature as it provides the guideline for the reader of your technical specification document.
A table of content must contain headings as well as the subheadings of your technical specification document. It will also help you in locating the details of a particular specification. You can also refer while working on the project.
Step 3. Write specifications
Now, this is the most important step in writing a technical specification. In this step, you will finally write all the specification of your project. Make sure that the specifications that you write in your technical specification document are detailed and thorough.
For example, if you are working on a machinery product to be used for certain work, then it is important to know what should be the dimensions of the product? Or the weather conditions under which the product should be able to work efficiently, such as extreme high or low temperatures.
Or if you are designing a website for your client, then it is important to know whether the website should contain a landing page or not? Or what should be the theme of the website? Etc.
Step 4. Important features
This step is not mandatory for all technical specifications. You can write an all-important feature that must be taken care of in addition to the basic specification in the important feature section. This will make your team to pay special attention to those features.
The next steps you are required to follow is to make the specification document make readable and understandable. To do this, you are required to keep in mind the following rules.
- Your writing style should be simple and easy to read.
- Use simple and short sentences.
- Avoid using pronouns. For example, use the direct name of the product each time you are referring to it rather than using pronouns like “it” and “which.” It will reduce the chances of confusion of your technical specification readers.
- Next, define jargons that you use at the end or better at the beginning of the technical specification document of your technical specification. This will help you in keeping everyone on the same page, and you will not have to waste time explaining everything.
- Read the specification critically and also get it critically read by someone who has a better experience. For example, you can ask the project guide or your manager to proofread technical specification before making the final submission. This will reduce the chances of errors and will also reduce the confusion at a later stage of the project.
- Next, assign a control number and suitable title to the technical specification document.
- Finally, add the signature block for all the authority in.
