Ask HN: Where can I find an example of a professional functional specification?
I'm a freelance developer and I have managed to land a very large contract (6 figures). It's an ecommerce web project (design and development) and I'm very keen on making an excellent impression.
I promised the client that I would draw up a full specification of the work that I will be providing - however I'm not a very confident writer and I don't know where to start.
I've read Joel's guide to functional specifications and had a go based on his example yet I can't help but feel that my attempt is amateurish and embarrassing.
Can anybody point me in the direction of a professional specification that I can use for inspiration or give me some pointers - What exactly is expected from a person or company when a client agrees to spend big money on a project.
Thank you. Hmm. I've never seen a requirements document for a 6-figure contract. I have seen some for low 5-figure ones though. One starting point could be the IEEE standards (IEEE 830 and 1233) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_requirements_specifica... http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/cs401/IEEE830.pdf although it's old and superseded http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/159274/what-s... According to Stack Overflow "29148:2011 standard seems to replace the IEEE 830:1998." There are also plenty of books on requirements, like for example: Mastering the Requirements Process Second Edition by Suzanne Robertson, James Robertson (published by Addison Wesley Professional ) Edit: hopefully there are people here on HN that routinely either write or receive requirements documents of that magnitude and can help you more than I do :) I've handled my fair share of large scale functional specs (not as a freelancer though) and I've gone through the process of drafting a 6 figure SOW before. I don't have any examples to give you but if you'd like some feedback/guidance I can potentially help. Feel free to contact me (email in profile) if you're interesting. "created: 1337 days ago" awesome!