It’s pretty easy to have an idea. It’s not so easy to have a good idea, a little harder to communicate that fledgling idea to other people, and even more difficult to expand it into a project or product with a whole team of people. Collaborators misunderstand the purpose, ask questions that uncover new possibilities (or new problems), and bring fresh ideas that—even if they’re brilliant—can add complexity and uncertainty.
Ideas need to be challenged and shaped, but without a shared “true north,” it’s easy for even two people to get misaligned. If you’ve ever asked a kid to do a chore and gotten sub-par results, asked someone to pick something up at a shop and gotten the wrong brand, or ordered a drink at a restaurant and received something not-quite-right, you’ve experienced a mismatch of expectations that might have been avoided with better requirements.
And in software projects, mismatched expectations aren’t just frustrating—they’re expensive.
Why Requirements Matter
When projects go sideways, it’s rarely because the code won’t compile. More often than not, it’s because the project was built on fuzzy, incomplete, or shifting requirements. Clear requirements make four things possible:
- Estimation of effort — realistic timelines and budgets depend on knowing what we’re building.
- Alignment across teams — client + dev + design + PM need a shared understanding of purpose and business needs before the first sprint.
- Shared terminology — “messaging” could mean email notifications, live chat, or SMS; nailing this down avoids headaches later.
- Commitment to scope — guardrails keep great ideas from derailing delivery.
We know that software projects are practically alive in their growth and ability to change. We’re always excited to replace a less-than-adequate scoped requirement with something better or reprioritize to accommodate a great idea. These pivots can cost time and money, though. Even when they seem insignificant, so just like the original idea, they need to be clearly understood and agreed to by all parties.
How Detailed Is “Enough”?
We don’t need to know every button label or form field order to estimate a project, but we do need to know whether we’re building a chat feature, an email notification system, or a full-blown SMS platform. Thinking of each feature from a perspective that asks who will use it, what they will do, and what their best outcome will be, lets you communicate some good boundaries that let us think along the right paths and ask better questions.
Think of it like a building: you don’t have to pick paint colors and trim yet, but we do need to agree whether it’s a house or an apartment building before any concrete is poured.
A Practical Framework for Pre-Sales Requirements
Here’s the process I recommend for shaping requirements before a project is under contract:
- Capture user-facing features
Ask, “Who uses this feature, and what do they use it to do?”
If you’re feeling especially bold, go a step further and ask, “What should happen when this workflow goes wrong?” If a user needs more information, or the approver decides it’s not quite ready for primetime, where does the process go? - Add technical requirements and dependencies
We’ll work with you to incorporate infrastructure, integrations, hosting—things people who don’t work in software usually don’t need to think about, and may not even know exist. - Prioritize
Both teams need to work together to determine the master list.
Start with technical must-haves (databases before dashboards!), then business priorities. Make sure your highest priority features are clear and complete. You may decide that some things aren’t high enough on the list to be included in this development cycle, and that’s ok. Knowing they’re on your roadmap lets us stick to the ones that made the cut while leaving room for the expansion we know you’ll want. - Document key decisions and tradeoffs
Do you have to meet certain legal requirements? Which tier of service do you need from a vendor? Are you choosing one approach over another? Write it down now.
This may not give you pixel-perfect user stories or acceptance criteria, but it gives design a head start on journeys and workflows, and it gives project managers a workable “definition of done.”
What This Enables
Defining requirements lets the whole project be smoother:
- Design can sketch navigation and key screens with confidence
- Devs can deliver realistic estimates
- PMs can plan against something more solid than a napkin sketch
- The whole team has a shared “north star” to keep scope creep in check
Wrapping Up
Requirements don’t just magically exist—they have to be created, refined, and adopted. These day-one requirements still have to be fleshed out and fine-tuned across the life of a project until they become acceptance criteria. They have to be tailored to fit the business, the processes, and the people that rely on your product. It takes effort, but it’s effort that pays off every time. Clear requirements don’t kill creativity; they give it a place to thrive.
If you’re feeling stuck on the why, the who, or the how, a discovery session or workshop series with Clevyr can get your requirements rolling. Click the Contact us button in the upper right or give us a call at 844.425.3897 to start defining and refining your great idea!
