Managing the specification process in complex projects

Research into the specification management in complex project raises a number of issues for practitioners and researchers. These include joint-development of specifications, specification expertise and resources, documentation, effective communications and change control. These issues are related to the specification process and the features of complex projects. The idea of complex projects are discussed from organizational, technological, industrial and institutional perspectives. An analytic framework was then developed and used in an in-depth case study. Twelve projects were surveyed using modified analytic induction. Findings indicate that a supplying company's relationships with their customers and other co-working companies vary from make-to-concept to make-to-print. Management approaches to the specification process contribute to the varying project performance. The key to successful specification management is to build project capability to enable the dynamical process of validating customers' requirements and suppliers solutions.