Tips in Writing Specs for Product Managers

PM to Dev: Why is there no confirmation prompt when I click "Delete" here?

Dev: Well, it wasn't in the specs.

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How much detail should a PM aim for when writing a spec?

What can you entrust to the design & engineering team to do "as a given"?

Some tips:

1. As the product matures, maintain a running document that captures your product's UX pattern library.

Drop down behavior, search, transitions, bulk actions, file upload progress etc. don't need to be reinvented in every sprint.

Update the doc/wiki, advertise it on Slack/email & reference it in the spec.

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2. While prototyping, you want to capture the overall journey (& edge cases) in great detail, but don't be overly prescriptive on UI specifics.

Give some creative space for your designer to experiment with in pursuit of a more elegant solution.

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3. Lookup values? Defaults? Error messages? Field labels? Meta-data? The spec needs to shed light on all unless it's a part of the pattern doc.

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4. And oh, notifications! This is often left as an afterthought even though it's a critical touch point in any user flow. Email/SMS content should always be fleshed out to the last word by the PM or Product Marketer.

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