Re: Writing a product functional spec AFTER the product is built

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

This doesn't sound all that "quirky" to me at all.  In my experience the 
salestool version of the "specifications" is almost always written after the 
product is built, at least in prototype.  In cases where there is already an 
existing design specification, the sales version is usually created by taking 
the design document and hacking away information that is considered unnecessary 
for customers and/or potentially too IP-revealing to competitors.  But I've seen 
plenty of situations where development started out with fairly vague goals, then 
evolved into product as the technology was worked out, and for those we 
inevitably turned out the user manuals and functional descriptions when the 
process was at or near completion.  And yes, some of these actually were 
successful. :)

Your customers don't need to know and probably don't care that the product specs 
you provide them were created "retroactively," or that they aren't the original 
"requirements" the product was developed to.  They want to know what 
configuration and performance the specs are promising to them, and under what 
conditions and applications.  IOW, they want to know the results of your 
development process, not what its goals were.

Gene Kim-Eng



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tara English-Sweeney" <tens00 -at- gmail -dot- com>
> Thank you Bill. I agree wholeheartedly about the quirkiness of writing this
> after the product is built. However, we all know that sometimes we have to
> do what we are asked and what is needed. The direction of what is needed
> came straight from sales and our team of product managers. There were
> earlier attempts at this document so there are very clear expectations as to
> what they want. I had a different vision of this document but our sales team
> expects what they are used to and I'm relatively new to the company. I
> tried. Thank you for your feedback!

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