Do you know how thorough your customer's specifications are?
Different clients will have different levels of documentation on what they want to be built. You need to be ready to do a Spec Review for any one of the following possible cases:
There are 5 levels/types of Specifications:
1. I have an idea
Run from this or Verify they have a really hefty bank account!
2. High-Level Requirements Document
This will read like a wish list with no details and many unanswered questions. High-Level requirements are very vague and open to many interpretations.
3. Detailed Requirements Document
The details have been fleshed out and allow developers to write Functional and Technical Specifications.
- We need a login page for northwind.com
- Must match existing site look and feel
- Username is already in the Users table in the ABC database (SQL Server)
- Password should be at least 8 characters
- .NET is already used for the existing site so that is what this should use of course
Figure: Detailed Requirements have more of the details you want
4. Functional Specification
This will include detailed mock-ups for the UI, use cases/user stories and might be at a level to allow for fixed price quoting on the project. Functional Specifications go into more detail about the user interface and interactions in the system.
- We need a login page for northwind.com
- Must match existing site look and feel
- Users table must be defined and added to the ABC database (SQL Server 2008)
- Username consists of user first initial and first 7 characters of the last name
- For example Joe Jones -> jjones
- Password should be at least 8 characters
- Site uses .NET 4 and this interface must be added to existing project
- This is the layout for the login interface
- A red asterisk (*) should be displayed if a value is left blank and Submit is pressed
5. Technical Specification
This is the blueprint for the application. There should be no unanswered questions and should allow for a fixed-price quote.
- We need a login page for northwind.com
- Must match existing site look and feel
- Users table must be defined and added to the ABC database (SQL Server 2008)
- Username consists of user first initial and first 7 characters of the last name
- For example Joe Jones -> jjones
- Password should be at least 8 characters
- Site uses .NET 4 and this interface must be added to existing project
- Define the data model explicitly
- Must work with IE7, IE8, IE9, and FF3
- Must display correctly at 1024x768 resolution
- Must support ANSI characters for Username and Password
- Will not support mobile browsers
- Will not be tested with localization (assumes en-us local on US versions of software)
- SQL Membership provider will be leveraged