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.