Most of this is good input for managers but the first answer from Adele complaining about "getting disorganized braindumps or single line descriptions from stakeholders rather than the thoughtful, detailed specs they’ve promised" seems misguided and counterproductive. It's simply unrealistic to expect customers and customer proxies (product owners / business analysts) to supply detailed specs. Their minds don't work that way and complaining about it just leads to frustration on both sides. Instead take the disorganized braindump as a starting point for the real requirements analysis process. If the stakeholders were capable of writing thoughtful, detailed specs on their own then they wouldn't need you and could just outsource the engineering work to the lowest offshore bidder.
in my experience, the "disorganized brain dump" is all too often considered to be a valid spec by the people who delivered it. then you code it. and then they change their minds.
As a developer you have a professional obligation to engage with your colleagues and educate them about the process. Sometimes this means building a mock up or throw-away prototype just as a tool to facilitate further discussion. But complaining about it won't get you anywhere.
