Process specification

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Process Specification is a generic term for the specification of a process. It is not unique to business activity, but can be applied to any organizational activity.

Within some structured methods, the capitalized term Process Specification refers to a description of the procedure to be followed by an actor within an elementary level business activity, as represented on a process model such as a dataflow diagram or IDEF0 model. A common alias is minispec, short for miniature specification.

The process specification defines what must be done to transform inputs into outputs. It is a detailed set of instructions outlining a business procedure that each elementary level business activity is expected to carry out. Process specifications are commonly included as integral components of requirements documents in systems development.

A variety of approaches can be used to produce a process specification, including:

• Decision tables
• Structured English (favored technique of most systems analysts)
• Pre/post conditions
• Use cases, basic course or events/alternate paths in use cases
• Flowcharts
• Nassi–Shneiderman diagrams
• UML Activity diagrams

No matter what approach is used, a specification must communicate to system development designers, implementers and support professionals, and be verifiable by stakeholders and end users.

• Specification (technical standard)

• Chapter 11 of the Structured Analysis Wiki, by Ed Yourdon