Technical specifications: Guide to combining rigor and innovation

Why traditional technical specifications are holding back innovation

The “specify everything” trap: when comprehensiveness becomes paralysis

It's tempting to want to define everything in advance. The idea is appealing: a comprehensive CDC offers a Illusion of control reassuring. We tell ourselves that if everything is written down, then nothing can go wrong.

In reality, this comprehensiveness backfires. For example: during a Dynamics 365 deployment, an initial CDC imposes complex custom developments to manage contract automation. 3 months after the start of the project, the technical team discovers that native Power Platform functionalities would have covered a large part of the need, without a line of code. The result: a significant additional cost on developments that were finally abandoned.

The problem is not so much rigor as the fact of Prescribe the “how” before mastering the “what”. Technologies are evolving, SaaS tools are getting richer, business needs are becoming clearer along the way. A CDC that freezes technical solutions from the start tends to lead to technical maladjustment and to a difficulty in bringing about and implementing evolutions in a fluid manner.

The opposite risk: a CDC that is too vague and opens the door to misunderstandings

On the other hand, a CDC that sticks to big goals without a specific framework creates another problem: each party projects its own vision onto the project.

A frequently observed scenario: a Power Platform project where the CDC simply mentions “automating sales processes.” Neither the functional scope, nor the source systems to be integrated, nor the expected volumes are specified. The service provider delivers a convincing proof of concept in a restricted environment, which reveals its limits in production, in the face of thousands of Dynamics 365 records and unexpected integrations.

Sans clear acceptance criteria, without a description of target processes or performance constraints, gray areas proliferate. And every gray area is a potential source of litigation, frustration, or costly rework.

The challenge of alignment: when the CDC does not create a dialogue between business and IT

In many organizations, specifications are written in silos:

• either by the IT department alone (technical vision, without business anchoring);
• or by functional departments alone (functional vision, without technical realism).

In both cases, the result is a document that is disconnected from the reality of the other party.

An effective CDC works like a translation tool. It must make business needs intelligible for technical teams and technical constraints for functional departments. It is a document that we built in dialogue.

The principles of technical specifications that allow innovation to breathe

Define the business objective and expected results, not the technical solution

Attention, the specifications must describe the need (the “what”), not the solution (the “how”). It is precisely by leaving the latter to the expertise of the service provider or integrator that value is created.

Let's compare these two formulations for the same project:

• “Develop a PowerApps application with 15 screens and 3 connectors.”
• “Allow salespeople to create and edit customer quotes from their mobile, with real-time synchronization to Dynamics 365 Sales, with the aim of reducing the sales cycle by 20% to 30%.”

The first one encloses the project in a predefined solution. The second Formulate a measurable business objective and leaves the freedom to identify the best technical implementation, which may not be the one we originally imagined.

SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-defined) anchored in business results are your best safeguard against drifts and much more than a list of functionalities.

Identify non-negotiable constraints (the security framework)

It is precisely because some constraints are absolute that they must be clearly identified, in order to distinguish what is imposed from what is simply preferred.

In an Azure cloud project, for example, the CDC will specify the requirement for hosting data in Europe, often imposed by internal policies or certain sectoral regulations (DORA for the financial sector, for example), log retention policies (regulatory compliance and audit requirements such as certification) ISO 27001), the levels of authorization required via Microsoft Entra ID, but the choice between PaaS and IaaS, between microservices and modular architecture will be left open.

Typical non-negotiable constraints in a Microsoft project include:

• Compliance requirements: GDPR, sector-specific standards
• Security and authentication: SSO via Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), Conditional Access policies, MFA
• Integration constraints with the existing IS: APIs available, legacy systems to connect
• Critical performance levels: response time, volume, availability

These constraints form the a foundation on which innovation can be built safely without stifling technical creativity — they give it a reliable framework.

Focus on user stories and use cases with fixed functional specifications

Borrowed from agile methods, the user story is a powerful tool for describing a need in a flexible and user-centered way. Its format is simple: “As a [role], I want [action] in order to [business benefit].”

The user story tell a story of use and sets a measurable acceptance criterion so that it remains valid even if the technical solution evolves, which is precisely the aim.

Associated with clear acceptance criteria (execution time, error rate, adoption level), user stories offer a common language between business and IT, understandable by all stakeholders.

The recommended structure of an adaptive technical specification

Section 1: Background and strategic issues of the project

The purpose of this first section is to answer the question: why does this project exist? It must allow any service provider to understand the context in which the transformation, without him feeling the need to question you every step of the way.

There you will find:

• The presentation of the organization and its transformation context ;
• The business goals ;
• The learnings from previous projects.

For example: “Our goal is to go from two weeks to 48 hours between identifying a lead and sending a commercial proposal, by unifying our three current tools in Dynamics 365.”

A well-written context section has the double advantage of avoiding costly back and forth and of immediately positioning the project in its strategic reality.

Section 2: Functional scope and target users

This section answers the question: For whom and for what? It maps the users, their roles and the business processes that the solution should cover — without going into the details of screens or interfaces.

The essential elements to document:

• The description of User personas and their needs real;
• The current and target business processes (a visual representation is often more meaningful than a textual description);
• The realistic volumes (number of users, daily transactions, volume of data to be migrated).

These volumes are often underestimated in the CDC. However, they condition the technical architecture, the choice of Microsoft licenses and the performance strategy.

Section 3 — Technical constraints and existing environment

Any transformation project is part of an ecosystem that is already in place. This third section documents this environment to avoid unpleasant surprises during the project.

For a Microsoft project, we will specify for example: “Microsoft 365 E3 environment, maintaining Entra ID with 500 users, no existing Dynamics 365, need for integration with SAP ERP via REST API.” This level of detail allows the service provider to size the solution correctly from the response phase.

It will also include:

• The simplified diagram of thecurrent IS architecture ;
• The systems to be integrated and APIs available;
• The non-negotiable security and compliance constraints defined in the previous section.

Section 4 — Success criteria and performance indicators

This section answers the key question: How will we know if the project is a success? This is often the most overlooked section.

It defines measurable criteria at two levels. Business KPIs first: “Quotation creation time of less than 5 minutes (compared to 20 minutes currently), adoption rate greater than 85% at D+90.” Technical KPIs second: 99.5% availability, response time less than 2 seconds for current requests.

These criteria serve as the basis for recipe tests and avoid disagreements at the end of the project about what constitutes a “successful delivery”.

A technical specification is nothing less than a strategic alignment tool scalable that lays the foundations for effective collaboration between business and IT, distinguishing what is non-negotiable from what must remain open to innovation.

With the rise of AI and modular architectures in the Microsoft ecosystem, future specifications will have to incorporate even more explicitly a margin of adaptation for future technological developments, an ability to evolve that only well-structured documents can offer.

Your next transformation project deserves a framework that meets its challenges. Askware accompanies you in the co-construction of your projects that speak to both the trades and the technical teams. Contact our experts to frame your ideas right from the design phase.