Just love this analogy.
Wilson Miner 30 Mar 06
“A functional spec is a map to a place you have never been. It’s like drawing a map and commiting to a route of a place you have not even set foot on.”
I think that illuminates perfectly the reason functional specs are considered necessary in large companies and considered a burden in small teams. If you’re leading 50 people into an undiscovered country, and you have to convince the entire court of Spain and Portugal to fund your expedition, then you’re going to hire a bunch of guys with sextants to plot out your journey and guess where all the gold is. If you’re 5 guys in a boat, you’re just going to set sail and head west until you find land.
Article can be found here.