Project management blogs by Mechatronic Solutions LLC

Planning & Quoting Projects

Some of the challenges with quoting and planning projects are:

Scope Creep happens when the customer realizes later in the project that particular features or capabilities are important to the project, or the customer and supplier have a very different understanding of the requirements.
Project Timeline Accuracy is poor, resulting in delays in the final delivery and additional costs to compensate for tasks taking longer than expected.
Change Management has become a huge project itself due to scope creep and/or technical solutions not meeting the project expectations.
Communication of the project status, changes, data collected, decisions made, and keeping the project tasks coordinated.

The solution to those project pain points is to execute the following:

Assign a project manager who has the proper skills and experience.
Create functional specification that details the expectations of the product or process to be developed.
Execute a Proof of Concept (POC) BEFORE the complete project is quoted and started whenever it is not clear if a proposed technical solution will meet the project expectations.
Develop a detailed project plan
Quote the project based on the functional specification and the project plan

The development of the functional specification can require a considerable effort on the part of the customer to support. Frequently, it will require the participation and input from multiple deciplines within the customer's company, and several rounds of review by the customer's management. It is best if the functional specification is created by the customer. If the supplier is tasked with creating the functional specification, then the company should expect to financially compensate the supplier for the effort.

The execution of any proof of concepts (POC) will involve a mini functional specification and project plan. These may be conducted by the customer, or under contract with a supplier. The results of the POC should be well documented and have specific measurables relative to the primary project functional requirements.

Once the functional requirements are defined and all POCs are completed, a detailed and accurate project plan and timeline can now be developed. The functional specification and the project plan together give the supplier what is needed to accurately quote the project.

As the project progresses, the number of changes that will occur will be directly proportional to the quality of the functional specification. No technical surprises should occur, because anything in question was addressed previously by a POC.

Proof of Concept

A proof of concept (POC) or proof of principle is an exercise to evaluate if a proposed technical solution is viable within the context of the intended application. It can be thought of as a prototype where the content of the prototype is only accurate in terms of evaluating the idea, provided all other substitutions have minimal influence on the performance of the idea under the prototype evaluation. The activity should always involve carefully selected measured metrics that will determine how well the idea meets the requirements of the application.

The concept can be applied to technical, engineering, marketing, financial, business, and other deciplines. It is generally more efficient to fail early fast, and then make changes quickly, iterating toward the final solution. The effort itself will often engage the various disiplines within an organization in a way that will foster their consideration and input earlier than if a full project was executed. Transparently evaluating any potential risks and quantifying the performance of the proposed solution relative to the appliation helps to build confidence in those who have a stake in the project.

A well designed POC has a mini project plan, timeline, and especially a functional specification. It should be crafted to focus on the primary influence of the idea on the intended application, and provide measurable results that easily differentiate if the concept is suitable for the application, or not.

How to Create a Functional Requirements Document

A Functional Specification is a formal document that carefully describes the intended capabilities, appearance, and conformance to standards required by a product or process. But be careful, it should only describe the intended final behaviour of the product or process, NOT how it should be done. This distinction is critical, because if the request specifies exactly how something should be done, then you may miss out on better solutions the supplier would normally offer. &npsp; Only specify what you want, not how it should be done.

A properly created functional specification is also a great way to manage scope creep. If the customer later wants something that was clearly not in the what was quoted based on the functional specification, then it is a matter for change management.

Example

Functional Specification for Temporary Paper Retention Device

Purpose

The device is intended to temporarily hold multiple sheets of paper together without excessive permanent damage to the sheets.

Background

The common solutions that exist in production now include a paper clip, binder clip, and the Bulldog clip. Each of those accepts a limited range in the number of paper sheets, and they rely upon a spring action to clamp the sheets together, creating a force that increases the frictional force between the sheets, whereby holding the sheets together.

Functional Requirements

The device must be capable of holding as few as two and as many as fifty sheets of paper of the same size stacked together in the same orientation.

The device is temporary, and it must be able to be easily engaged and disengaged by an adult without instruction within 2.0 seconds

The device must be able to retain paper sheet sizes of "letter" ISO 216 A4, and "legal" in the [ortrait or landscape orientation.

The paper will be 20-pound bond with an individual thickness range of 97 to 114 μm (0.0038 to 0.0045 in).

The ability of the device to hold the paper together sufficiently will measured according to [describe the test procedure].

No permanent damage shall result from the use of the device on paper. [add damage specifications]

The use and storage of the paper will be in an environment stablized to a temperature of 18° and 22° C and relative humidity between 35 and 55 percent.

Note that in the above example, the exact design of the device is carefully omitted from the functional specification. It is permissible to include a specific design in the specification, provided all of the functional requirements and intended environmental expectations are included.

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