What are technical specifications
• Where are the Technical Specifications used?
• Requests for Proposals (RFPs)
• Invitations to Tender (ITTs)
• The advantages of using RFP/ITTs
• What does a Technical Specification Contain?
• Specifications versus requirements

Product Requirements
• Requirements by type and focus
• Quality requirements
• Requirements sources
• Industry Insight: poor requirements
• Cost of poor requirements

Management Requirements
• Including the necessary background information
• Solution vs. Project scope
• Agreeing how your suppliers will provide the process of service

Writing the Technical Specifications Section
• Describing the current and future business and technical environment
• Outlining the business problem
• Detailing project goals
• Functional and non-functional requirements

Maintaining Readability
• Managing your word choice

Creating Clarity
• Dealing with pronouns and synonyms
• Selecting the right words
• Establishing Concision
• Eliminating synonyms
• Removing noise words
• Going “which” hunting
• Achieving Consistency
• Using a style guide
• Simplified technical English

• The structure of Requirements Questions
• Writing questions to elicit information from suppliers
• Creating a request for information (RFI)

Statements
• Basic structure of a requirement
• Focus words and suppliers
• Writing testable specifications by using qualifiers
• Using checklists to ensure high quality requirements
• Templating functional and non-functional requirements

Narrative Descriptions
• Identifying actors, goals and use cases
• Writing use cases
• Using different writing styles
• The benefits of progressive elaboration

Using Modelling Techniques to Clarify Needs
• Storyboards, Mock-ups and Prototypes
• Conveying information with graphics
• Chunking the document
• Employing photos, drawings, charts and graphs
• Focusing graphics

Managing Your Sentences
• Building sentence variety.
• Appropriate sentence length
• Using active and passive voice
• Avoiding the imperative voice
• Providing necessary background information
• Creating strong subjects
• Punctuating for clarity
• Solving common grammar problems
• Structuring information with tables and lists.