Functional Specifications vs. Requirements Document

project-planning
Skadoosh picture Skadoosh · Apr 21, 2010 · Viewed 26.1k times · Source

Currently in my comp., there are some changes going on regarding project documentation. There is a LOT of time and effort spent on discussing functional specs vs. requirements doc. However, I don't think anyone here understands the reason why you would use one over the other. Therefore, I don't understand the difference myself.

Can someone shed some light on this matter please? If you have links to articles, blog posts, etc. That would be helpful too.

Answer

Justin Niessner picture Justin Niessner · Apr 21, 2010

A Requirements document should specify the requirements from the perspective of the end user.

User requirements document - Wikipedia

A Functional spec is a level lower and starts to define how different parts of the system should function at the System Engineering level:

Functional specification - Wikipedia

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