Ask HN: Where can I find an example of a professional functional specification?

7 points by xoe26 11 years ago | 3 comments

I'm a freelance developer and I have managed to land a very large contract (6 figures). It's an ecommerce web project (design and development) and I'm very keen on making an excellent impression.

I promised the client that I would draw up a full specification of the work that I will be providing - however I'm not a very confident writer and I don't know where to start.

I've read Joel's guide to functional specifications and had a go based on his example yet I can't help but feel that my attempt is amateurish and embarrassing.

Can anybody point me in the direction of a professional specification that I can use for inspiration or give me some pointers - What exactly is expected from a person or company when a client agrees to spend big money on a project.

Thank you.

GFischer 11 years ago |

Hmm. I've never seen a requirements document for a 6-figure contract.

I have seen some for low 5-figure ones though.

One starting point could be the IEEE standards (IEEE 830 and 1233)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_requirements_specifica...

http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/cs401/IEEE830.pdf

although it's old and superseded

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/159274/what-s...

According to Stack Overflow

"29148:2011 standard seems to replace the IEEE 830:1998."

There are also plenty of books on requirements, like for example:

Mastering the Requirements Process Second Edition by Suzanne Robertson, James Robertson (published by Addison Wesley Professional )

Edit: hopefully there are people here on HN that routinely either write or receive requirements documents of that magnitude and can help you more than I do :)

brd 11 years ago |

I've handled my fair share of large scale functional specs (not as a freelancer though) and I've gone through the process of drafting a 6 figure SOW before. I don't have any examples to give you but if you'd like some feedback/guidance I can potentially help. Feel free to contact me (email in profile) if you're interesting.

ismail 11 years ago | |

"created: 1337 days ago" awesome!