_____ Requirements have challenges with tendency to drift to prescriptive specs.

_____ Requirements have challenges with tendency to drift to prescriptive specs.

• A. Functional
• B. Structural
• C. Aesthetic
• D. Performance

Answer: (D)

Performance-based requirements specify the outcomes the project must achieve, not the exact way to achieve them. This gives design-build teams the flexibility to select methods, materials, and systems that meet the required performance. But because the focus is on results, there’s a tendency for people to add specific means of achieving those results in the documents, turning the performance requirement into prescriptive detail. That drift undermines the intended flexibility and innovation of performance specs and can lead to unnecessary constraints or disputes. Functional requirements describe what the system should do, not how to do it; aesthetic and structural requirements focus on appearance or structural attributes, respectively, and don’t carry the same risk of drifting into prescriptive means. So the tendency to drift toward prescriptive specs aligns with performance-based requirements.

Performance-based requirements specify the outcomes the project must achieve, not the exact way to achieve them. This gives design-build teams the flexibility to select methods, materials, and systems that meet the required performance. But because the focus is on results, there’s a tendency for people to add specific means of achieving those results in the documents, turning the performance requirement into prescriptive detail. That drift undermines the intended flexibility and innovation of performance specs and can lead to unnecessary constraints or disputes. Functional requirements describe what the system should do, not how to do it; aesthetic and structural requirements focus on appearance or structural attributes, respectively, and don’t carry the same risk of drifting into prescriptive means. So the tendency to drift toward prescriptive specs aligns with performance-based requirements.