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The Risk No One Owns Up To - Your First Step in a Project
Gathering requirements and writing them down for developers or vendors is the first step in a project. After getting money approved of course. If your requirements aren’t clear, you will not get what you want — you get what the vendor/development team interprets and most likely it is a generalized solution. Once that contract is signed, that generalized interpretation becomes your reality.
Poor requirements is the fastest ways to burn through your budget, extend timelines, and end up with a product that technically works but doesn’t actually solve your problem. Keep in mind this will not stop the project. If the ask isn’t clear,
- Vendors will still bid,
- Projects will still move forward
- And money will still be spent
— but the outcome will rarely match expectations.
The Reality of How This Happens
All your stakeholders are extremely busy running the business. They are asked to create requirements, and this is something they have never done before. So, they are overloaded, stretched thin, and they are unclear how to create requirements in the first place. They’ve been tasked with writing requirements — on top of everything else — and they’re told:
“We need these by Friday.”
They know it deserves time.
They know it’s important.
But they don’t have the bandwidth.
And doing it quickly is a rush job on something they have never done before.
So, they throw something together.
A few bullets.
A short description.
Task complete.
Box checked.
And that is what goes out for vendors to bid on and write a statement of work on.
Why This Happens So Often
When issuing an RFP or requesting project bids, it is critical that your requirements are clear, complete, and consistently understood by all potential vendors. Yet this is rarely the case.
I’ve spent years reviewing requirements for clients across large transformation and modernization initiatives. Most of the time, the requirements look “complete” at first glance — but once reviewed closely, they raise more questions than they answer.
The questions I ask aren’t unique. They are the questions every responsible vendor should be asking. Not to slow the project down, but to ensure both sides understand what is being requested.
If expectations are not aligned up front, the risk doesn’t disappear — it compounds.
Let’s walk through how better lay the foundation of your upcoming project and make sure you get something that truly solves the problem you are facing at your company.
Not All Requirements Are Created Equal
How you write requirements directly determines:
- What gets built
- What gets tested
- What gets approved
- What is rejected as “out of scope”
- What you are forced to live with after go-live
Vague requirements don’t create flexibility.
They create interpretation.
And interpretation is where projects fail quietly. Everyone has an imagination but not everyone will visualize what is going to get built the same way.
Before / After: What Good Requirements Actually Look Like
Before: Vague Requirement
“The system should allow customers to make payments online.”
At face value, this sounds reasonable. In reality, it creates ambiguity around:
- Payment methods
- Partial vs full payments
- Scheduling
- Error handling
- Confirmation
- Mobile vs desktop
- Accessibility
- Real-time vs batch posting
Every unanswered question becomes a vendor assumption.
I personally like creating User Story style requirements, but we will go through multiple ways to do this not just in a user story style.
After: User Story with Acceptance Criteria
User Story
As a residential customer, I want to make a one-time payment through the customer portal so that I can pay my bill quickly without calling customer service.
Acceptance Criteria
- Customer can make a full or partial payment
- Supported payment methods: credit card and ACH
- Payment confirmation is displayed immediately
- Confirmation email is sent within 5 minutes
- Failed payments display a clear error message
- Payment reflects in account balance in real time
- Feature works on mobile and desktop
- Accessibility standards are met
Now there is no guessing. This requirement is buildable, testable, and approvable.
Why Acceptance Criteria Matter More Than the Requirement
Acceptance criteria force clarity before it becomes expensive.
They answer the most important questions in any project:
“How do we know this is done?”
Acceptance criteria:
- Remove ambiguity
- Prevent scope fights
- Drive meaningful testing
- Protect the client during sign-off
- Expose gaps early
Without these foundational standards you in risk of having multiple delayed impacts such as.
Months later:
- The feature doesn’t behave as expected
- UAT becomes a fight
- “That’s not what I meant” enters the conversation
- Change requests pile up
- The vendor points to the original requirement
- The timeline slips
- The budget grows
That 30-minute shortcut:
-
- Costs months of rework
- Impacts multiple teams
- Delays go-live
- Increases support burden
And no one remembers where it started. But the root cause was simple, the requirements were unclear.
If you can’t write clear acceptance criteria, you don’t fully understand the requirement yet. And this is fine you are here reading this article. Let me give you some tools to help make you think about things you wouldn’t normally think about when being asked to write requirements.
Requirements Quality Checklist
Use this checklist before approving requirements or releasing an RFP.
Clarity
- Is the requirement written in plain language?
- Would someone unfamiliar with the project understand it?
- Is the intent obvious?
Structure
- Is it written as a user story where appropriate?
- Does it clearly define who, what, and why?
Acceptance Criteria
- Are acceptance criteria defined?
- Are edge cases included?
- Is it objectively testable?
Scope Control
- Does the requirement clearly state what is in scope?
- Does it imply anything that might be interpreted differently?
Users & Personas
- Are all impacted users identified?
- Are internal, external, and system actors included?
Dependencies
- Are integrations or upstream/downstream impacts identified?
- Are assumptions clearly stated?
Testability
- Could QA test this without asking for clarification?
- Would UAT know exactly what “pass” looks like?
If you can’t answer “yes” to most of these, then the requirement is not quite ready.
Below are clean, practical, copy-paste-ready examples you can use in real projects, RFPs, or as teaching tools with teams and vendors.
I’ve structured these so they are:
- Easy to understand
- Easy to review
- Easy to test
- Hard to misinterpret
You can also turn these directly into Word / Confluence / Jira templates later.
Example 1: Clear Requirement Template (Non–User Story Format)
As I said before I like using the user story format with acceptance criteria, but this format works well for RFPs, formal requirement documents, and design artifacts.
Requirement Title
Online Bill Payment – One-Time PaymentRequirement ID
REQ-PAY-001(Optional but Recommended – use only if your organization truly manages IDs well)
Requirement Description
The system must allow customers to make a one-time payment against their account balance through the customer-facing portal without contacting customer service.Business Objective
Reduce call center volume and improve customer self-service by enabling fast, reliable online payments.In-Scope
- One-time payments
- Credit card and ACH payment methods
- Residential customer accounts
Portal-based access (web and mobile)
Out-of-Scope
- AutoPay enrollment
- Payment plans
Refund processing
Users / Actors
- Residential Customer
- Payment Processing System
- Customer Account System
Internal Team Access on behalf of Customer
Acceptance Criteria
(See example below – this is critical)
Business Rules
- Partial payments are allowed
- Payment must be applied to oldest outstanding balance first
Failed payments must not update account balance
Dependencies
- Integration with payment gateway
- Real-time connection to account balance service
Functional Requirements
- Customer can initiate a one-time payment from the portal
- Customer can choose payment amount (full or partial with Min/Max restraints)
- System validates payment method before submission
- System displays payment confirmation upon success
- System updates account balance immediately
Notification is sent to customer for success and failure instances
Notes / Assumptions
- Customer is already authenticated or signed into the user portal
- PCI compliance is handled by the payment processor
- Non-Authenticated users can make payments as well, but emails will go to account owners’ info as well as payer email.
Example 2: User Story Template (Agile-Friendly)
This format works best for backlogs, sprint planning, and iterative delivery.
User Story Titl
One-Time Online Payment
User Story
As a residential customer I want to make a one-time payment through the customer portal So that I can pay my bill quickly without calling customer service
Acceptance Criteria
(This is where clarity lives)
- Happy Path Customer can select credit card or ACH as payment method
- Customer can enter a payment amount (full or partial)
- Payment is processed successfully
- Confirmation message is displayed immediately
- Confirmation email is sent within 5 minutes
- Account balance updates in real time
Error Handling
- Invalid payment method displays a clear error message
- Insufficient funds displays a clear error message
- Payment failures do not update account balance
- Customer can retry payment without re-entering all information
Usability & Access
- Feature works on desktop and mobile
- Payment flow completes in no more than 3 steps
- Accessibility standards (WCAG) are met
Validation
- QA can validate success or failure without clarification
- UAT can confirm requirement is met based on criteria alone
Definition of Done
- All acceptance criteria met
- Tested across supported browsers/devices
- No critical or high defects open
- Business sign-off completed
Why These Examples Matter
Notice what these examples do not include:
- Long filler paragraphs
- Technical implementation details
- Vendor-specific tools
- Ambiguous phrases like “should be able to”
Instead, they:
- Clearly define intent
- Lock expectations
- Protect scope
- Enable testing
- Reduce interpretation
If a vendor builds exactly what’s written here, you will get a solid product that solves your overall problem you wish to fix.
How You Can Use These Immediately
You can:
- Include these as appendices in RFPs
- Use them as standard templates for your teams
- Require vendors to map designs and test cases to these
- Train business SMEs using these examples
- Show leadership what “good” looks like
Now that you have the requirements locked in how you can apply this to your RFP’s here are some tips on that as well.
RFP Language Best Practices
1. Be Explicit About the Requirement Quality
2. Require Assumption Documentation
Include language such as:
“Vendors are expected to review requirements and identify ambiguities, assumptions, or gaps prior to final pricing.”
This forces vendors to engage — not blindly bid.
Require vendors to:
- List assumptions explicitly
- Tie assumptions back to requirements
- Identify risk areas
If it’s not written down, it will be disputed later.
3. Separate Requirements from Solution
4. Define Acceptance Criteria Expectations
Avoid language like:
“The vendor shall use XYZ tool to…”
Instead:
“The solution must support…”
Let vendors propose solutions — but lock down outcomes.
State clearly:
“All functional requirements must include acceptance criteria that define how success will be validated.”
This sets the tone early.
5. Make Clarification a Required Step
6. Make Requirements Ownership Clear
Build time into the RFP process for:
- Vendor questions
- Clarification workshops
- Written responses shared with all bidders
If vendors aren’t asking questions,
they don’t understand the requirements.
Define:
- Who owns requirements
- Who approves changes
- How scope changes are handled
Ambiguity here guarantees conflict later.
The Bottom Line
If you don’t invest the time to be clear upfront:
- Vendors will still build
- Contracts will still be honored
- Projects will still move forward
But you won’t get what you expected.
You’ll get exactly what you asked for — even if that’s not what you meant.
