Surveys

Surveys

Surveys are the mechanism through which each department submits their requirements to a project. They're designed to be completed asynchronously — no meeting required — and structured enough to produce actionable, comparable input from every team.

How the Survey System Works

When a project lead opens surveys, SpecGraph creates one survey per department. Each survey is:

• Unique to the department — the URL is specific to that department's survey instance.
• Pre-loaded with the PRD — contributors see the current AI-generated PRD so they have full context.
• Guided with AI-generated questions — questions are generated per PRD section to help contributors think through their requirements systematically.
• Open for free-form input — contributors can also add wishes directly without going through guided questions.

The Survey Experience for Contributors

When a department contributor opens their survey link:

1. Review the PRD

The full AI-generated PRD is shown at the top of the survey. Contributors can expand and read each section. This is intentional — you can't submit requirements without knowing what's already been proposed.

2. Answer Guided Questions

For each PRD section, the AI generates specific questions tailored to elicit that department's input on that section. For example:

• For an Engineering team reviewing a "Performance Requirements" section: "What are your maximum acceptable response times for the primary user workflows? Are there specific pages or operations that must be especially fast?"
• For a Legal team reviewing a "Data Management" section: "Are there data residency requirements we must comply with? Which jurisdictions apply?"

Contributors answer each question in a text field. Their answers are automatically converted into wishes when they submit the survey.

3. Add Free-Form Wishes

Beyond the guided questions, contributors can add as many free-form wishes as they like using the Add Wish button. Each wish requires a title, description, and type. Priority, effort, and budget impact are optional but recommended.

4. Review and Submit

Before submitting, contributors can review all the wishes they've created in this session. They can edit, delete, or add more. Once satisfied, they submit the survey.

After submission the survey is locked for that department — additional changes require the project lead to reopen the survey.

Managing Surveys as a Project Lead

Survey Status Dashboard

The Surveys page shows each department as a card with its current status (Pending, In Progress, or Submitted). You can see at a glance who has responded and who hasn't.

Viewing a Department's Survey

Click any department card to open their survey detail page. You can see:

• All wishes the department submitted.
• How they answered each guided question.
• The submission timestamp.

Designing Survey Questions

If you want to customize the guided questions before opening surveys, navigate to Surveys → Design Survey. From here you can:

• Review the AI-generated questions per PRD section.
• Edit, delete, or reorder questions.
• Add custom questions that the AI didn't think of.

This is optional — the AI questions are usually a good starting point — but worthwhile for complex projects where you know exactly what information you need from each team.

Reopening a Survey

If a department needs to add or amend requirements after submitting, you can reopen their survey from the survey detail page. This unlocks the survey for that department and they can make changes. Note that reopening resets the submission status for that department.

Public Survey Links

Surveys are accessible via a direct URL without requiring the contributor to have a SpecGraph account. This makes it easy to include stakeholders who aren't regular platform users — you can send them the survey link and they can complete it without logging in.

The survey link is available from the survey detail page of each department.

After All Surveys Are Submitted

Once all (or most) departments have submitted, you proceed to conflict detection. You don't need 100% department participation to move forward, but you should have at least the most critical departments represented. See Resolving Conflicts for the next step.