There are a number of approaches to developing the Performance Specification. Workshops or brainstorming sessions, involving the key stakeholders, provide a vehicle for creating shared ownership of the end product and for achieving consensus on realistic, affordable outputs. It can be helpful to use an external facilitator for these sessions. An informed and experienced facilitator may encourage more lateral thinking, can provide the necessary focus, and act as broker to reconcile any differences.
When running a workshop, the Project Team may choose not to do any preparatory work but to start from a blank piece of paper. Alternatively, they may use some initially drafted thoughts as a basis for the discussion.
Another approach, but one that is compatible with the use of workshops, is to start off with the department's conventional specifications that can then be converted into output or performance criteria. At the outset it may be easier for many of the stakeholders to think in terms of inputs, and this may therefore be a suitable way of initiating the process. Care must be taken, however, to ensure that the final product does not retain unnecessary or unsuitable inputs.
A third approach has been to refer to Performance Specifications used elsewhere. In following this route, it is important not to adopt another document wholesale, but to use it selectively and as a basis for determining the project's own particular needs. It is intended that Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation will develop a "reference library" of typical specifications over time.
Production of the Performance Specification invariably takes longer than expected and this should be accounted for in the procurement schedule.