Copy and Paste Specifications: When One Size Does Not Fit All

You're driving a new car on a country road, everything seems to be going well and then, “BOOM,” something happens, and the car stops running. Confused, you open up the owner’s manual only to see that it refers to an entirely different car. There are some similarities in the two types of cars, but not enough information to help you through this crisis. Although this is an extreme example, this is what happens on many projects when the specifications are copy and pasted from similar previous projects. Many times, this is not a big issue because the projects are similar in nature; however, some-times, having the wrong specification information can be very detrimental to the project’s success. Through lessons learned from recent events and a large project, I will show you how the lack of detailed specifications can ruin a project from the start.

Sometimes specifications are so detailed that every page is considered sacred. It takes days of reading and re-reading to ensure that no details are missed. Other times, there’s good information in these specifications, but boiler plate from a previous project has obviously crept in. While bidding on a job for an elementary school, I saw this note, “All outlets should be tamper proof so the inmates cannot manipulate them.” Inmates in an elementary school? What kind ofschool is this?…