The foundational requirement implicit in all standards is that execution teams will read, understand, and execute them. If they cannot do that, then the standard is not useful. The usefulness of a standard consists of a few essential components: Applicability, brevity, coherence, value correspondence, and practicality.

  • Applicability is the ratio of information that is relevant to the reader versus that which is not. People generally assign the same value to information that is presented together. If the information is useless on average, most people evaluate it as useless as a whole.
  • Brevity is the amount of time it takes to understand the content. For example, 5 pages of photographs might be physically larger than three paragraphs of text, but may generate a better intuitive understanding in less time.
  • Coherence is the extent to which the requirements agree with themselves. Requiring all drawings to be delivered only in .dwg format in one place, and only in .pdf in another is an example of incoherence.
    Every requirement in the specification should be directly and explicitly linked to the value it generates. If you require something, say why.
  • Practicality is the extent to which requirements agree with what is possible. “Artificial intelligence software will select all system setpoints”, for example, is an impractical requirement. “The automation vendor will submit programming and participate in collaborative review prior to implementation” is a practical requirement. Since the standard is a list of requirements that must be satisfied, including things that are impossible will cause readers to conclude that the standard cannot be applied.