Experienced engineers know that a comprehensive technical specification is a prerequisite for all but the most trivial projects. Without a solid spec, it is difficult to know how to begin a project, let alone deliver a high-quality product. Yet, specifications are rarely complete in that they seldom capture every minute element of the product's ultimate behavior and performance. Indeed, trying to specify every detail is usually futile: Changing customer requirements,
unforeseen implementation difficulties, and other troubles can beset even the best specifications. Wise engineers create balanced specs that lay out a clear framework without wasting time on trivial details.
Just as a specification is needed to define the technical framework for a product, a contract is needed to define the framework for a business transaction. For example, outsourcing development tasks without a good contract can create product-killing disputes over intellectual property ownership. But overly ambitious contracts are just as inefficient as over-reaching technical specs. Too often, unnecessarily complex contracts delay product development and increase costs while providing no benefit to the involved parties.
Unfortunately, many companies seem to think that the length of a contract is proportional to its quality. In fact, the opposite is often true, particularly when contracts are bloated with "standard terms" that have little bearing on the project at hand. A blind insistence that the supplier accept the customer's standard terms-common among electronics industry behemoths-is regrettable during the current downturn. The resources spent analyzing and negotiating 10,000-word contracts would be much better spent on R&D. And in markets where time-to-market is king, wasting even a few weeks haggling over inappropriate contract wording often leads to a compressed development schedule, over-worked engineers and missed opportunities.
Engineers understand that while some generic elements of a technical specification can be applied to many products-and should be for the sake of efficiency-it is ridiculous to blindly apply the same spec to projects with fundamentally different goals. Perhaps if the engineers and the lawyers had lunch together now and then, companies would adopt a similarly thoughtful approach to their contracts.
Jeff Bier is the general manager of Berkeley Design Technology Inc. (www.bdti.com), a dsp technology analysis and software development company. Kenton Williston of BDTI contributed to this column.
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