Developing effective specifications
About
This one-day course enables end-users, technical experts, proponents, internal customers and other key stakeholders to work with procurement and contracting to develop effective specifications and scopes of work, to ensure fit-for-purpose outcomes. The course empowers participants to collaborate with all key stakeholders.
Learning objectives
- Understand the importance and value of clear and effective specifications
- Differentiate between the different methods of creating specifications and when to apply them
- Develop robust specification templates to ensure consistency
- Understand the use of appropriate language (critical to creating effective specifications)
- Appreciate the need to develop specifications in cooperation with stakeholders
- Make use of techniques such as value analysis and value engineering to define ‘fit for purpose’ in the context of creating effective specifications
- Embed key KPIs into the specification to ensure delivery
- Manage and mitigate legal and contractual risks in the specification
Course format
- This one-day course comprises a mix of tutorials and practical exercises. The tutorials explain the key principles, methods and techniques for writing specifications, while the exercises illustrate how to apply them in practice.
This course will be delivered virtually via Zoom.
7
Continuing Professional Development
This event can contribute towards your Continuing Professional Development (CPD) hours as part of the IET's CPD monitoring scheme.
10 Oct 2024
9:30am - 4:00pm
Programme
Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- Learning styles
- Plan for the day
The importance of effective specifications
- Scopes of work
- Impact of poor scopes of work
- Examples of costly errors
The critical role of language
- Terminology in creating effective specifications and scopes of work
- Problems of communication
- Lack of detail or too prescriptive
Encouraging cooperation
- Technical and commercial experts with responsibility for developing robust effective specifications and scopes of work
- Managing stakeholders’ expectations
- Working with contractors
Types of specification
- Exploring and using the various approaches to the development of appropriate specifications and scopes of work
- Output
- Performance
- Technical
- Functional
- Solutions-based
The role of value analysis
- Value engineering in the process of developing scopes of work and specifications
Specifications and contracts
- The legal and contractual impact of poor specifications and scopes of work
- How to embed scopes of work and specification outputs into tender and quotation documents
Specifications as a management tool
- Developing KPIs and SLAs framed around robust effective specifications and scopes of work
- Negotiating with contractors
- Negotiating with stakeholders