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Product specs are important product documents that outline key requirements for building a new product, functionality, or feature. Whether you're designing hardware or software, product specifications offer technical descriptions of what the product will look like and provide details about things like target users, business needs, and end goals. You should have preliminary product specs in place before any actual work starts. Product specs are important in modern product development because they provide clarity to all stakeholders at every stage of the development process. With our product specification template, you don't have to be an engineer to write product specs.
Product specs are technical and can be tough to write. Our product specification template gives you an easy process for writing a product specification document. A template shows you what data is needed, so you know what you are looking for and what team members to ask.
Product specs are technical documents and do not need an informal or catchy title. It's best to keep things straightforward and simple. "Product specification document -- [PROJECT NAME]" or something equally basic will be fine.
Our product specifications template already has this covered. You can also choose to keep or delete the descriptive supportive content below.
In this column of our product spec template, you write about the status of the project and the people handling it. If necessary, you can add fields for other key members of the team or other important information. Be sure to give yourself due credit as the author of the document!
Your product spec document should explain in a list what your company is trying to achieve with this product. What purposes does it aim to serve for the end user and what problems does it hope to solve? What does your company or development team hope to achieve at the end of the project?
Our product spec sheet template gives you space to list the key performance indicators used in assessing the team's progress. You should indicate whether each metric is to be increased or decreased, and may want to add a field for Objectives and Key Results.
Your product specs template should explain what your solution is, how it works and the extent of work involved. Provide a clear list of implications to consider, as well as those you can deal with later, and those that are not part of the job.Outline the current and possible future requirements and consult the scope of work doc to avoid getting bogged down in work that is outside the product scope.
Your workflow description should outline the functional aspects of the product or feature, and describe the core development phases and processes. You can include images, links, smart art, and screenshots to show how workflow is structured and each member's responsibilities at different steps along the way.
Your product specification sheet template should include all the resources necessary to ensure a good implementation. Figma designs, web-flow workups, pictures, and other assets can help clarify many points that might be missed by someone poring over fine print and statistics in a technical documentation template.
Check with your product team and stakeholder to make sure there are no unanswered questions or blind spots remaining in your product design specifications. Make sure you clear up any confusion about costs, design, implementation, or testing before you release the final document.
Your engineers should estimate the project, define plans for the source code structure, and make the technical choices adapted to the project. Your product specification sheet template should divide this feature into small incremental scopes and subtasks to ship independently, so that everyone involved in the project knows their role.
Every product specifications example should explain:
1. What is being created?
2. Why does it need to be created?
3. How will it be used?
4. What do we expect from the final result?
5. How can we plan the development?
Your product specification template must provide a summary section that gives a brief overview of the intended product. It should not go into extensive detail, but provide a summary that readers can use to get a quick idea of important points like the concept, market need, expected development time, and future maintenance. Other sections of your document will include more information on each area should your reader have further questions.
Your product specification template needs to answer the most important question: why are we building this thing? The document should describe precisely what the product aims to achieve. How does your new product serve prospective customers and how will its release benefit the company? These key questions will shape the entire development process, so they should be among the first issues you tackle when writing a product specs document.
Whether you are building hardware, software or a mobile app, spec templates should answer the question "What will make our users happy?" If you are updating or redesigning an existing product, you can get this information from reviews and feedback. For new products you can use a market survey. But you should always get as much user input as possible, as it will determine the market reception of your product.
Target personas are another extremely useful section of information that should be included in any product specification template. Knowing the age, education levels, lifestyles, interest and other information about different user personas helps you curate the development process, lay out the most important features, and decide the range and acceptable levels of complexity for your finished product. It also helps your sales and marketing teams prepare effective launch campaigns.
Your product design specifications should describe the physical and mechanical requirements of your product. Physical design specifications should include technical descriptions of your product, as well as intended size dimensions, weight, scale, and other physical attributes. Drawings are helpful for clarifying questions and providing visual representation. They can help less technically skilled team members understand different data points that your engineering and development teams might take for granted.
Your operational description section should include the software, hardware and programming needs, as well as the results of simulations and emulations under different conditions. For example, a mobile app spec template should cover things like RAM, processor, and operating system requirements and provide examples of how the software runs on different mid range and high-end phones. Knowing your target personas can help you determine what minimum requirements are appropriate for your project.
A good product specifications document is an important part of every project plan. Without it, teams and members can find themselves working at cross-purposes. A good product specs template saves you hassles and delays and avoids miscommunication.
One of the primary purposes of a product spec document is to ensure that designers and engineers are on the same page. There must be no confusion between different teams concerning the aim and goals of the product. There should be room for extra creativity and flexibility, but little room for mistakes and misinterpretations. When everybody involved knows what the finished product is supposed to do, things go much more smoothly.
Your product specification template contains important information that guides decisions at every step of development. By outlining processes and workflows, you provide clear reference points for team members, management, and stakeholders. When everybody knows what they are supposed to do and when they are expected to finish, you have a much better chance of meeting deadlines, using staff and resources efficiently, and getting a final product that meets your expectations.
Users determine whether your product succeeds or fails. When you ignore customer needs, your product is doomed from the start. Your sample spec sheet encourages solicitation of user input and ensures that you are building a product that meets the needs of your prospective buyers. Compiling user stories and performing user testing helps ensure you produce the product customers need, not the one you think they need.
A product specification template provides a benchmark for product quality and ways to test product performance against your expectations during the development process. By following this document, your team helps ensure that the product will pass quality assurance. If you are developing this product for a client, the product spec document relays your team's commitment to quality production and provides a set of clear specifications by which your client can measure your work.
Risk mitigation and fail-proof procedures cannot account for every scenario. When problems arise during the development process, your team needs to be able to protect their reputation. One of the best ways to do that is to show that they covered every possible scenario listed in the production specifications template. Product spec documents also help them account for foreseeable problems and avoid them before they happen.
Without core specs, teams can spread out in too many directions. Time is wasted on unnecessary tasks while important jobs are neglected altogether, as managers are unsure of who should be doing what. A product specifications template helps ensure that all necessary information is available to everyone. This helps everybody understand their place in the development process and precisely what is expected of them, so they can focus on their tasks.
When writing product specifications, a good product spec template does half the work for you. It provides you with the framework you need to begin research and pre-writing preparation. Here are the steps you need to take to write an effective product specification document.
When you are filling out your product spec template, be sure to touch base with the other teams involved in the project. Talk to sales, outreach, marketing, and administration so that you get everyone's thoughts and insights regarding the product. When you know what everyone expects and get input from technical and non-technical people, you can incorporate their needs and concerns into the development process. This helps ensure a successful launch and leaves everyone feeling invested in the finished work.
Whether you're project manager or lead developer, your team is a strong knowledge repository when you are writing product specifications. Make sure your meeting agenda gives everyone on your team a chance to pitch in with suggestions, and write them down to be incorporated in your preliminary draft. You can also have your team run individual simulations or surveys for information. The more data you gather from your team members, the better your final product specs will be.
Collate all your research insights and make a rough draft of your product spec document that includes everything you have gathered. There's no need to format it at this stage: an extensive outline will do. When you have drawn that outline up, run through it and deselect non-essential information.
Slite's free product spec sheet template can make your work as much as 75% faster! Our template brings clarity to your product's features and goals and helps ensure that you address all possible blind spots. You can customize our template to suit your needs, and collaborate with team members to ensure everybody is kept in the loop and has a chance to provide their input. It's a free download, so check it out now and see for yourself!
Writing product specs can be challenging, with lots of moving parts and small details. But Slite's free product specs template makes the work much easier! We offer a good starting product specs framework. But because every product launch is different, our template is fully customizable to meet your needs. And Slite enables collaboration between team members and stakeholders, so you can make sure everybody stays in the loop and all ideas, problems, and concerns get heard.
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