Writing the product description
The project requirements are defined and analysed in two progressive levels of detail.
In the process of starting up a project, the major products or outcomes, along with key quality
requirements, are documented in the project product description. The aim of this step is to confirm
that all the major products needed to achieve the user’s expected outcomes are identified.
It is important to assess and confirm that no necessary products have been missed, and no
unnecessary products have been included.
Definition: project product description
A description of the project’s major products or outcomes, including the user’s quality expectations, together with the acceptance criteria and acceptance methods for the project.
It is recommended that high-level acceptance criteria be stated in objectively measurable terms.
However, this may not always be feasible.
Therefore, a set of descriptive statements may be used as long as the project brief clearly indicates that these statements will be translated into more precise criteria as part of developing the product descriptions.
This is important not only for reaching a common understanding between the project manager and project board but also to enable an effective set of quality tolerances to be established.
Alternative solutions and project approaches may be considered to ensure the approach and
products most likely to satisfy the business case are included in the project scope. They are likely to
be described in high-level detail only.
Product Descriptions – helpful advice
First up, let me remind you that the product is different to a task or activity. A typical task Description will consist of a noun and verb such as “Build the wall “, whereas a product is described by simply using a noun or outcome – “Garden wall “would be an example here.
So it is important to remember three important things about your product title:
Do make sure that you pick a nice short title that you can easily use on the diagrams.
Whatever you do, do not resort to using numbers on product diagrams, which then means that you cannot read or diagrams without looking up the lists all of the time. Such a diagram would be almost useless as a management tool.
I make the title descriptive, so that you can easily understand what the product is
Used the language of the business area. If you change all the business area terminology to a different terminology, then the business staff cannot understand the diagrams and so cannot spot any mistakes.
Here are each of the sections that need to be completed along with some brief and helpful advice.
Purpose
The purpose of a product description is to describe a product’s purpose, composition, where it is derived
from, and quality specifications. It is produced at the planning phase as soon as possible after the need
for the product is identified.
The purpose is simply asking why you should want to build is product in the project.
At first glance this might seem to be obvious. By just sometimes you stop and realize that although you may normally do something on this project you don’t actually need to do it this time. If you do not know why you need a product, find out or don’t build it!
This heading often causes confusion. A better name would be “Description “Because that is what the composition mostly is. In this section you describe the product, but that may well include sub products That comprise this one.
For example, take a typical product that you will be familiar with such is a microwave oven. There is the body case, the door, the microwave unit, the controls, and so on.
So if you are writing a product description the for a microwave oven (and let us assume that you are making one rather than purchasing it) Then the composition may well refer to a diagram that shows in detail the various sub products that make up the oven itself.
It is important not to confuse the product description with a specification, which is a separate Specialists document in its own right. Indeed, a specification document may need its own product description.
Where you do have a more detailed specification, that becomes the product, and year’s end write a product description and explains exactly what the specification covers and how it will be presented.
Identifier: product name or a unique identifier if the project has a large number of products
Since you will have already created your product breakdown structure and product flow diagrams, then each product including this one will have been identified as a rectangle on each diagram. For easy cross-reference the identify here is usually numeric although it may be alphanumeric if that makes more sense. This is used to cross reference to the symbols on the product diagrams.
Version: the current version number of the product description
Purpose: the purpose of the product, how it will be used, and who will use it
Composition: list of the product’s components or parts
Format: is there a standard appearance to which the finished product must conform?
Not all products have requirements for format and presentation, so do not hesitate to leave this section blank if it needs to be. However, reports for example, may need to comply with a house style.
Equally, in projects involving Computer Systems, dates are often has required format, sometimes a very strict one.
Derived from: the source of the product, such as a design, a commercial product, an existing system to
be upgraded or replaced, or a statement of expected benefits
Derivation is a rather strange heading, but an easy way to think of it is as “Dependencies “. Ask yourself, what must be in place before you can build this product.
Normally, you need to build the products that are needed before this one. Conveniently, if you refer to the product flow diagram, this section can be filled in by looking at the arrows that come from previous products on the product flow diagram.
However, it may just be that the product is “External “and come to resource outside the project, and if so, you note it here.
Do not worry about the “Internals “and “Externals “if they are not quite clear for the products are first.
You may intend to have a team building something (The internal product), But then decide for speed, to buy it from outside the project (External product). So you simply change the symbol on the diagram and that the detail on the product description.
At first glance, you may think that this section is rather unnecessary, but surprisingly often catches any products that you would otherwise miss from the product flow backward pass checks.
These backward pass checks are useful in that they get you to think about the natural flow of products and allow you to see where a product is missing or whether the linkages are incorrect.
The arrow dependency in the diagram may also be on something other than a product, such as a confirmation from the finance director that the funds are in place so that you can proceed with the work of building this product.
Quality specifications: the functional and non-functional requirements for the product along with
their associated measures
Development or production approach and skills required: description of how the product is
expected to be developed or produced; any special skills, facilities, or equipment required
You will want to think carefully about skills for the quality checks. The reason for this is that introducing the word “Skills “Into the heading is confusing, because you may want to choose someone precisely because of their lack of skill.
For example, if you have an instruction Manual for a new Computer System, the last person you want to check that Manual is a team member who helped write the system and who already knows exactly how it works.
Instead, you need someone who’s never seen the system before – A complete novice if you will. The quality check would be simply sitting that person down in front of your product along with the Manual, and ask them to enter the new customer record as an example. If they cannot follow the Manual or it is confusing to them then you will know the rewrite is necessary.
But for some technical products, you may indeed want a highly skilled and professionally qualified person to conduct the tests. Sometimes such an individual will come from an independent third-party supplier such as those who provide professional standards services for health and safety.
This section is obviously useful for resource planning. In the early part of product planning though, and particularly before the product is clear, you may not be quite sure of skills yet, so you can leave the section blank until you know the detail.
Allocated to: the person or team needed to create this product
Quality tolerance: the ranges within which key quality specifications can vary and remain acceptable
Quality tolerance is also a difficult term to define. A tolerance, by definition, has a plus and minus boundary to a stated measure. Many project products just are not like that, one example is the speed of the new machine for the production line that is being procured within the project.
Producing a unit with the machine must not take more than 3 seconds, but should not be faster than 2 seconds because this is unnecessarily expensive as well as disruptive to the rest of the production line.
Many products in business projects do not have a tolerance, so again, just leave this section blank if it is not relevant to the product.
Quality methods and quality skills required: the quality methods (such as verification, test, and
inspection) to be used to check that the product meets its quality specification and the indication of
skills required to perform the quality control activities
The quality methods section specifies how you will measure whether the product has met its criteria or not. How you do this depends on the nature of the product.
Sometimes, you can measure with a ruler – For example, a report must be on A4 Paper. At other times, the measure is a judgment of whether managers agree that they can understand the report.
In the case of judgment, it is important to name the individual who will make that judgment so that you can agree upfront precisely the criteria upon which the product will be charged.
Responsibilities: the producer, reviewer, and acceptance authority for the product
There are potentially three individuals involved here. The first is for the person who created the product or produced it, the second is the individual who will check and carry out the quality tests, and the third is the person who will approve the product.
In some cases, the individual who carries out the quality check and approves the product may be the same person.
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