Teams that use functional specifications have better designed products, because they had the opportunity to explore more possible solutions quickly.
In the planning phase a functional specification is created from the requirements.
If you've never worked in a company that does functional specifications, you may never have seen one.
A functional specification describes how a product will work entirely from the user's perspective.
In this series, I'm only talking about functional specifications.
I've written a short sample spec which should give you an idea for what a good functional specification looks like.
Part two of my four-part series on writing functional specifications is now available.
A functional specification (design) document that goes into more technical details may be created.
All a functional specification has to do is explain how the program will behave.
To learn how to write good functional specifications, read my four part series.