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noun

specification

spess-ih-fih-KAY-shun

Hear it your way
  1. 01Understand
  2. 02Hear
  3. 03Distinguish
  4. 04See it used
  5. 05Choose how it lands
In plain English

An exact advance statement of what is required and how completion can be judged.

Another useful meaning: A clear description of the result that several people are expected to produce.
Why it is worth having

It names the agreement that lets several people's work fit together, so you can ask for one before anybody starts.

Not quite plan

A plan says how the work will proceed. A specification says what the finished thing must be and how anyone can check that it is.

Words it naturally keeps company with
write a specificationmeet the specificationagainst the specificationa loose specification
See it living in different rooms
work“We argued for three weeks because nobody had written a specification anyone could check.”
conversation“Tell me what good looks like. Right now I have a mood, not a specification.”
thought“What I called a brief was a wish. A specification would have said how we would know it was finished.”
How the wording lands

A client wants work started immediately and has described the result only in general terms.

Meaning held still: Get a checkable definition of finished before committing to a date.

Direct
“I can start Monday, once we have a specification we can both check the finished work against.”

It lands as: Makes the document a condition of the date, which is the only pressure that reliably produces one.

Tradeoff: It reads as bureaucratic to a client who believes they have already explained it twice.
Warm authority
“Give me one page on what done looks like and I will give you a date I can hold to.”

It lands as: Trades something small for something they want, and names the size so it does not sound like a project.

Tradeoff: One page invites a page of adjectives rather than anything you can measure work against.
Restrained
“I will write up what I think you have asked for and send it tonight. Correct anything I have got wrong.”

It lands as: Takes the work off them entirely and still produces the document.

Tradeoff: You carry the risk of guessing, and a client who skims will approve your mistake.

Watch for: A specification is not a wish list. If nothing in it can be checked, it will not settle the disagreement it was written to prevent.

First met in The Hour Nobody Ordered. Saving keeps that example with the word.

Words worth having

Build a vocabulary you can actually use.

Choose what the word should help you do, distinguish its shade, and practise how it changes a sentence.

02The promise

Useful words, not ornament.

Every word should make a thought easier to name, a sentence easier to shape, or another person easier to understand.

  1. 1
    Understand

    Begin with plain English and a sound you can follow.

  2. 2
    Distinguish

    See why a familiar nearby word is not quite the same.

  3. 3
    Use

    Meet the word in more than one kind of sentence.

  4. 4
    Choose

    Hold the intention still and notice how the wording changes its landing.

“The word is learned
when it becomes available.”

Opening or saving is never called mastery. Evidence begins only when you recall and use the word.