Functional Requirements Documentation Template

It is not a trivial task to describe a completely new project. With all the notes and thoughts, you may feel overwhelmed and don't know where to start. I am introducing a template that will help you define your project. It's a straightforward concept. It compiles everything you have into two categories: functional and non-functional requirements.

A functional requirement would be everything that your customer/client/user can do or see. It describes all the forms you may have in your project but also all informative pages. The goal is to group features in a way they are as much separate as possible. You can use a tree structure for this to break elements into manageable chunks. It's very important to be as specific as possible. This way, you will be able to see all the dependencies. For example, you may notice that Module A uses some features from Module B. This way, you can "link" these features to avoid describing the same functions twice.

On the other hand, a non-functional feature is everything that works behind the scene. All work that happens outside of user activity, like email notifications, reminders, calculations, payment transactions. In some projects, these features can be even more advanced than functional ones. Business Logic is also a part of non-functional requirements as well as any status processing jobs.

To make the whole document more readable, I always add an abstract as it happens in academic papers and glossary. Glossary is especially useful when there is the ambiguity of words meaning, such as "user"- it can say anything, so it is essential to explain the meaning.

It will take you some time to create a final document, but I think this template is a great place to start. If you find difficulties in creating it or if you'd like to consult your documentation - contact me!