
Why You Don’t Need a Specification Document Before Talking to a Dev Team - ianatiev
https://stanfy.com/blog/why-you-dont-need-a-specification-document-before-talking-to-a-dev-team/
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jlg23
If the OP does product development like he writes articles then I too would
prefer to gather the specs myself in long "conversations" with him. But
concise writing is something one can learn:

In 8th grade we got schematics of a bird feeder and had to provide a textual
description from which one could build that exact bird feeder. Time for the
assignment: 40 minutes.

> If your mobile app or project is like the Iron Man in our office, I mean if
> it can be created in a very short time, then it might not be worth it to
> plan all things in advance.

"Replicate this image at 50x50 pixels with these stickers on that wall. Start
30cm below ceiling, align left side with that glass line." Nothing else
needed, if one follows this spec it is impossible to do it wrong. Great task
for the intern one does not like.

A complete specification does not need to include everything but only the bare
minimum to describe the project so that the implementation provides exactly
what was asked for. This in fact is what makes specifications good: It must be
complete but concise.

~~~
gawy
In real life it is often more to extremes. Either nothing or details that do
not add value at that particular case. One of many examples I saw was, when
one small feature was described on 10 pages going deep into every single
corner case and as a result - less than 1% of those was used. In such cases it
just makes more sense to run it in short experiment cycles.

