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Writing Specifications for Digital Projects

This one-day course will provide you with an introduction to writing and maintaining written specifications for digital projects (including websites, e-books and software). It is relevant to both in-house and outsourced projects.

You will learn:

the need for specifications
what should, and shouldn't, be specified
best practices for creating specifications from a set of requirements
handling scope issues and gaining stakeholder buy-in
the specific requirements and issues involved in digital publishing.

Programme

What are specifications?
- Detailed descriptions of requirements for a particular purpose
- Targeted to a particular set of users
- Some are familiar: author and copy-editor guidelines
Why are they needed?
- Describe requirements
- Reduce and enumerate risks
- Ensure that all parties agree
- Understand why they are especially important in an outsourced world
Important techniques
- Defining scope
- Analysing requirements
- Targeting the text to the intended audience
- Identifying stakeholders
- Identifying the appropriate author for the specification
- Workshop: specifying a simple set of requirements
Version and change control
- A specification may change
- Manage that change
- Maintain change request logs
- Maintain revision histories
- Workshop: change the requirements based on stakeholder input
Summary
- Next steps
- Resources and further reading.

Who will benefit from this course?

Production staff involved in outsourced production of books and digital products, those involved in the management of the relationship between outsourcers and publishers and staff with responsibility for internal projects.

Your Tutor

Nic Gibson is a founder and Director of Corbas Consulting Ltd, who provide services to publishers and professional organisations in both traditional and electronic media. He has worked in and around the media industry since the early 1990s. He started his career in multimedia, doing hypermedia development and progressing into internet development and XML. For the past ten years, Nic has been working with XML driven web development, which led him to found Corbas Consulting, which specialises in digital publishing consultancy and training. Nic has worked on XML and e-book publishing projects for various publishers including Hodder, Penguin and Bloomsbury.

Note that most of our short courses can also be run as in-company events.

Dates: 10 October 2012
Duration: A one-day course
Price: £385+VAT
A number of discounts are available

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