Anyone who has ever worked on an engineering project is familiar with the endless number of specifications that can be submitted by a client. Sometimes the specifications have a crucial bearing upon project design, and other times the specifications are absolutely meaningless and have no bearing upon the project scope.
Lately, the number of specifications falling into the latter category has increased. I think clients are becoming lazy and not bothering to only submit specifications that apply to a certain project. Rather, it seems as if they just want to submit all the specifications they have available and hope that somebody on the other end will figure out which ones actually apply. Nobody seems to care about boiling down the specifications into what is important, and clients get all upset when some crucial detail they have buried in their mountain of specifications is accidentally overlooked. Furthermore, the sheer number of specifications often leads to contradictory information, puzzling both sides and delaying a project’s design.
As a project manager, I wish clients would produce a list of their most important or unusual specifications and rank them as crucial, flexible, or just a request. While I understand that this may be more initial work for the client, I think it’ll save them a lot of time and headaches in the long run. Having a priority list ensures that crucial details are addressed early in the design phase, keeping everyone happy.
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