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

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