Specification-driven Product Development

Many organizations develop their new products and services according to intuitive, informal methods. Substantial benefits can be obtained by upgrading these methods to formal alternatives. Improvements in product quality and significant reductions in time to market and development cost are reported as developers increase the maturity of their methods. However, organizations that imitate superficial aspects of formal systems while actually continuing informal development pay most of the costs of formality while receiving few of its benefits. This book explains generic formal development methods and contrasts them with informal systems. In the Definition Phase of a formal program, the functions that customers want the product to have are decided upon and recorded in a Functional Specification. After this document is reviewed and approved, it drives the activities in the Design Phase that follows. Detailed recommendations for writing and reviewing Functional Specifications are provided. To motivate organizations to upgrade their methodology, forty-eight benefits of formal methods are identified and described. Many quantitative results of real-world experience are presented. The principal obstacles that inhibit conversion of an informal environment to fully formal development are presented and analyzed. Specific techniques for overcoming both publicly stated objections and unstated actual obstacles are developed.