The technical specification

If one considers the life cycle of a system as described in the paper by Ratynski, it becomes evident that effective management is dependent upon the presence of detailed specifications. In general, a specification describes what a product should be so that someone or some group can design and/or build it. In the previous paper the concept of a two-part specification was introduced---the first part describing the technical requirements for the item, the second part describing the actual configuration of the completed item. In this paper we will consider the content of the specification and its application to the management control of the computer programming process. Particular emphasis will be placed on part 1 of the spec. In doing so we will pose and answer two questions: (1) why is the part 1 spec so critical to management control? and (2) why, if so important, have so many programming efforts been characterized by its absence?