Define procurement requirements

---
name: define-procurement-requirements
category: write
description: Turn a purchasing need into testable outcome, service, security, and operating requirements. Use when a team must brief suppliers without prescribing an unexamined solution.
---

# define-procurement-requirements

## Procedure

1. Name the business outcome, users, decision owner, budget range, timeline, and current-state problem.
2. Interview operators, users, finance, security, accessibility, legal, and downstream owners as relevant.
3. Separate mandatory constraints from preferences and optional capabilities.
4. Write each requirement as an observable outcome with an acceptance method.
5. Cover implementation, integration, data, support, continuity, exit, reporting, and total-cost needs.
6. Record assumptions, dependencies, exclusions, evidence sources, and unresolved questions.
7. Test the draft against at least two plausible solutions and remove vendor-shaped wording.
8. Baseline the approved requirements and define how changes will be controlled.

## Guardrails

- Do not copy an incumbent product specification and call it a neutral requirement.
- Route legal, regulatory, accounting, and security conclusions to qualified owners.
- Keep confidential budgets, architecture, and personal data within the approved audience.

## Done

- A requirements brief links each need to an owner, priority, and acceptance method
- Mandatory, preferred, excluded, and unresolved items are visibly separated
- Stakeholder review and baseline approval are recorded