How to write a great product specification sheet

Among the thousands of new products launched every year, many will fail. Sources from around the web report the failure rate at a shocking 95%. They attribute this stat to noted Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen—but no one seems to know when or where Christensen made that claim.

Beyond the folklore, recent economic research suggests the average product failure rate is closer to 40%. Some of the reasons for failure include low consumer demand, poor marketing, unexpected costs, and crowded markets.

Improving your odds of successfully launching any new product begins with knowing how to write a great product specification sheet (also known as a product spec sheet, specs sheet, or simply product specs). In this post, we’ll explore what a product specification sheet is, why it’s important, and how to write one. 

What is a specification sheet?

Used for building products, a specification sheet outlines how a product will be designed, what functions will be included, what its target audience is, how it will be used, what its regulatory requirements are, and more. In this way, the product spec sheet is like a blueprint for product development. It provides a plan for product management, quality control, sales, marketing, and communicating with key stakeholders. It helps keep the entire team aligned throughout the development process. 

Why are product specs important?

A well-written product spec sheet helps ensure the product meets customer needs and aligns with organizational objectives. The spec sheet is also an important tool for:

• Communication: Product specs eliminate ambiguity by clearly communicating the details of a product’s design.

• Regulatory compliance: A spec sheet documents how the product complies with all regulatory certifications, safety requirements, and environmental standards.

• Sales and marketing support: Specs are crucial for helping sales teams understand what the product is and how it brings value to potential customers. Marketing teams rely on specs to create promotions and campaigns.

• Customer understanding: Customers can also use product spec sheets as part of their decision-making process before deciding to purchase.

What should a product spec sheet include?

A comprehensive spec sheet might include the following elements:

• Product summary: Write a clear and concise overview that describes what the product is, its purpose, its target audience, high-level features, and how long it should take to develop.

• Business case: Outline how developing the product will benefit the company. Include estimations for the budget and the resources you’ll need to develop the product.

• User personas: Create short, fictional profiles that represent the target audience.

• User stories: Include short descriptions of features as seen from the potential user’s point of view.

• Functional requirements: Explain the specific functionality the product must have before it can be released.

• Technical description: Describe the product’s technical aspects, such as architecture, integrations, and modules. Include anything that helps your development teams understand the underlying technology.

• Design specifications and UX guidelines: Include product drawings, diagrams, illustrations, ergonomic details, and user interactions. Describe the desired user experience (UX) aspects like navigation, layout, usability, and accessibility.

• Performance specifications: Specify the benchmarks that will be used to measure the product’s performance. This can include response time, execution time, storage capacity, and reliability.

• Risks and challenges: Include a list of potential risks and challenges that could occur during the product’s development. Anticipating these risks can help you manage and mitigate them if they come up.

What are the steps for writing a product spec sheet?

Now that you know what a product spec sheet is, why it’s important, and what should be included in one, you’re ready to start writing. You can create a product spec sheet using a virtual whiteboard like Lucidspark.

With Lucidspark, you can easily share documents with team members who can access the document from anywhere at any time. This makes it easy to collaborate and get input. You can also embed your spec sheet in a product management platform like airfocus by Lucid, which helps create a single source of truth for all your product documentation.

No matter how you choose to create and share your documents, the following steps can help you write an effective spec sheet.

Step 1: Define the problem

To begin, you need to define the problem your product will solve. This can be a specific business challenge, a customer pain point, or a customer need. The challenge or problem needs to be stated in the spec sheet’s product summary.

Step 2: Know your audience

Understand who will be interacting with your product. This will involve doing some research to determine the preferences, habits, behaviors, pain points, and expectations of your potential customers. Adding this information to your spec sheet helps your teams stay aligned with user expectations.

Step 3: Determine which key elements you want to include

This is where you detail elements such as the product summary, functional requirements, and UX guidelines.

Step 4: Get input from team members and key stakeholders

Don’t try to create the spec sheet on your own. You own the document, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get feedback from others. Working with key stakeholders, developers, designers, and testers can improve buy-in while making everyone involved feel valued for their input.

Step 5: Identify which product specifications should be included

Include specifications, such as safety regulations, dimensions, compliance standards, and high-level designs that will make your product safe and operate the way it’s intended to. This information makes it easier for your development team to start designing a product that meets customer needs. User stories can help you identify key specifications that must be included.

Step 6: Review and revise

Get additional feedback from stakeholders, team members, and customers. This might include creating mockups and prototypes that give reviewers a visual of how the product works. This will give you a better idea of what works, what doesn’t, what might be too complicated, and what might need to be placed in the product backlog for a future iteration. Adjust the document as needed based on feedback.

Step 7: Use the spec sheet as a blueprint for production

After you revise the document and your product spec sheet is complete, use it as a roadmap or a blueprint to develop and build your product. This will help your team align with customer needs so they can prioritize tasks accordingly.

Tips for writing a great product spec sheet

The goal of a spec sheet is to help your team understand the product, what it can do, its requirements, and how it will provide value and meet customer needs. With the following tips, you can create a well-organized spec sheet that enables your team to build the right product with confidence.

• Use clear and concise language to make it easier for everyone to understand.

• Include diagrams and illustrations to help developers understand the product’s design, requirements, and components.

• Make the spec sheet accessible to everyone working on the project. A virtual whiteboard like Lucidspark and product management platform like airfocus make it easy to share a single document with the whole team so they can collaborate in real time. This ensures that team members always have access to the most current and up-to-date version of the document.

• Make your section headings clear and easy to navigate so team members can quickly refer to the information they need.

• Make sure the spec sheet is focused on customer expectations and needs. Don’t make it a list of things you’d like to see added to the product.

Like most of the documents you create for managing products, your job is not finished after you’ve written a great product specification sheet. It’s a living document that needs to be reviewed and updated often to reflect changing customer demands and the market. 

A well-written and up-to-date spec sheet provides a powerful guideline for developing and launching a successful product. Using Lucidspark and airfocus to create and manage your product documentation helps your team to collaborate and stay on the same page throughout the development process.