10 tips on authoring clear and precise requirements

Ever been confused by the wording in a standard or specification?

We communicate technical needs and requirements through standards and specifications. The ability to write good specifications is an essential skill for engineers.

IOGP Guide 604 – Guidance on requirement development, highlights some of the techniques to follow. This set of videos uses short clips to help demystify and explain how to improve your technical writing and erase the question marks and inefficiency in engineering.

What do you think? Look at the first modules and share your observations and ideas through on our LinkedIn post.

Module 0 is a good place to start.

Module 1 explains why it is so important to get your requirements right.

Module 2 explains an essential rule – simply and easily.

Module 3, “Don’t be so Ir-rationale”, examines the importance of explaining the reasons behind requirements to the reader.

Module 4, “The Digital Requirement” considers how digitalization has affected requirements writing.

Think spelling and grammar is for English majors? Module 5 looks at English usage and considers why it matters in technical writing.

Module 6, “This, That, and the Other” examines how we can reduce ambiguity in our writing.

Module 7 is all about passive (voice) failure.

Module 8 has 3 parts, and singles out ‘should’ for special treatment.

Module 9 presents tips for writing clear requirements that leave little (or no) room for interpretation.

Module 10 wraps it up for now with a summary of definitions and terms.