How careful drafting of technical specifications will help the customer save money

The terms of reference is one of the important documents that must be drawn up even before the start of project development, regardless of whether it is large or small. Indeed, on its basis, the final cost and development time will be assessed.

A common situation is when customers do not have a technical assignment, or there is a document that briefly and superficially describes the functionality of the future project. Sometimes customers describe the interface or design of the project, how it should look, bypassing the description of business processes.

A case from my practice. Once a client contacted to develop an online service for tutors, with an additional API for conducting a secure transaction. When asked to send me the TOR, a PowerPoint presentation was sent for 300+ slides. Which consisted only of pictures that were in no way connected with each other.

And this is not the first time when a set of text and pictures that are not related to each other was presented as a technical task. In this regard, I believe that if the customer does not manage to personally draw up a technical assignment that would fully reflect the necessary information and business processes of the company, then an employee of the contractor’s company should deal with the drawing up.

The analyst of the company will draw up the technical specification according to the approved form within the company. Since the TK itself, in addition to assessing the timing and cost of the project, is necessary for the developers who will take part in the project development process.

Of course, the client can independently draw up a technical assignment, this is not prohibited. In this case, I recommend that you pay attention to describe in detail those business processes that will be subject to automation. So, as in the preparation of the technical assignment by the analyst of the contractor’s company, it will be about them that will be asked first of all, and the necessary information will be recorded.

What input data will be supplied to a particular process and what needs to be obtained after the completion of the process. Also, here you can specify information about the activities of the company or division, so that there is a general idea of ​​the project being developed.

The advantage of a detailed description prepared in advance is that it will be much easier and faster for the performer to understand what needs to be developed in the first place, and what in the second. Due to this, you can save about 40-60% of money on the very preparation of the technical assignment.

If your company is going to draw up a technical assignment from scratch together with an analyst of the contractor’s company, then it is necessary to lay about 30,000 – 80,000 rubles for the entire process.