Set a course for your project's success with specifications [+ template].
Specifications are an invaluable tool when it comes to scoping your project.
Whether you're planning to launch a website, a mobile application, a redesign or any other digital project, drawing up specifications is the first essential step to a successful project.
In this article, we explain what a specification is, what it's used for, and what the different types are (functional specifications and technical specifications).
☝️ We also provide you with our specifications template, an example and tools to help you write your own.
What are specifications?
Specifications: definition
A specification is a document drawn up at the outset of a project. It formalizes the project's needs, objectives, constraints, scope, expected functionalities, deadlines and estimated budget.
The project manager is generally responsible for drawing up the specifications, although they can also be drawn up externally by a service provider.
What are the benefits of drawing up specifications?
Specifications enable you to :
- Reflect on and define your objectives. You can then determine the elements you need to include to meet them;
- define project priorities;
- help your contacts to give you the best possible advice;
- estimate the budget and deadlines required to complete the project;
- draw up a workload plan to manage your resources.
In concrete terms, the specifications serve as a basis for project planning and management.
When should specifications be drawn up?
Specifications should be drawn up before your project is launched.
As you can see, this document is essential for precisely defining the specifications and objectives of complex projects, whether they involve :
- launching new products,
- working with suppliers,
- approving budgets.
It plays a central role in ensuring uniform understanding between all stakeholders, reducing the risk of misunderstandings and optimizing project management.
This document is therefore crucial before launching initiatives requiring close coordination and clear definition of expectations.
2 types of specifications: functional and technical
There are two types of specifications:
- Functional specifications: these are designed to outline a project. It defines the functional requirements to be met by the future product. It is then passed on as the basis for the technical specifications, which translate the functional requirements into technical specifications.
- Technical specifications: these focus on the technical side of project development. It translates functional needs into technical requirements, and highlights the various constraints. This document is essential to the developers' work, in order to maximize the chances of precisely meeting needs.
💡 Functional and technical specifications are often included in the same overall specification, but they can also be written separately.
Do you prefer visual explanations? This video details everything you need to know about specifications. 🎬
How to draw up the right specifications for your project? Content and best practices
Step 1: Introduce the company
This first task involves briefly describing the company for which the project is being carried out. It is particularly useful when external service providers are called in, so that they have a good grasp of their customer's identity.
You don't need to be exhaustive. Simply list the information essential to understanding the company's raison d'être (its why).
👉 Some examples:
- sector and market,
- core business,
- flagship products or services,
- short-, medium- and long-term vision,
- your contacts.
Step 2: Present your project
The context
- What needs does it have to meet?
- Why did they emerge, and how?
- Who will benefit from the project?
The aim here is to explain the ins and outs of the project, so that everyone involved understands what's at stake and works to meet it as effectively as possible.
👉 Example:
Project to overhaul an EDM software package to better meet user needs.
The objectives
The same type of project can conceal different intentions and objectives. That's why it's essential to be aware of them and to specify the expected results, in order to:
- move in the right direction ;
- make informed decisions.
💡 The SMART method is the best way to proceed. It involves assessing the appropriateness of an objective by ensuring that it is:
- Specific(clearly defined, in particular using the QQOQCP method,
- Measurable(quantifiable),
- Attainable(taking into account available resources, for example),
- Realistic(relevant),
- Temporallydefined (by setting a deadline, in particular by defining a roadmap).
👉 Some examples:
- double the response rate of its platform ;
- increase user productivity by 50%;
- dematerialize the document validation circuit.
Scope
Setting the scope of a project involves defining its limits, with the aim of precisely determining the framework in which it will evolve:
- Does the project concern a company? A group?
- Is the impact regional, departmental, national or international?
- Does it involve the use of several languages? Etc.
👉 Example:
The platform is used by the group's various agencies, spread throughout France. This represents around 250 users.
Existing elements
Finally, we need to include any existing elements that will make it easier to understand and implement the project.
👉 Some examples:
- previous versions,
- mock-ups
- presentation documents,
- domain name, etc.
Step 3: Describe the project target
If you've specified in the previous step who the project is aimed at, in some cases you'll need to go into more detail. The more precisely you describe your target (or targets), the greater your chances of reaching them. If this exercise isn't easy to carry out, it will make you more relevant to the work you've done.
💡 Is your project aimed at your customers? Then define your marketing persona, i.e. the fictitious profile of your ideal customer, with as much information as possible:
- first name,
- age,
- personal situation,
- profession,
- salary,
- interests,
- questions, problems encountered, constraints,
- extracts of sentences written or spoken, type of vocabulary used.
To glean this information, you can :
- ask your customers questions;
- analyze information from your prospects;
- read discussions on forums dealing with their problems;
- gather more precise information from contact or download forms.
👉 Example:
Check out our article dedicated to persona marketing, which features a downloadable example and template to help you create your own.
Step 4: Evaluate your competition
While this step is optional depending on the type of project, it quickly becomes essential in certain cases, such as website development. To position your site successfully, you need to know who your main and secondary competitors are, and list the most important information about them in your specifications.
Then it's up to you to determine your positioning by proposing something fundamentally new, or similar, but better suited to your target's needs.
👉 Some examples:
- Who are your direct and indirect competitors?
- What are their strengths?
- What are their weaknesses?
- What is their positioning and brand image?
- What differentiates you from them?
Step 5: Define your graphic and ergonomic guidelines
For web projects, this section is useful when :
- you already have a graphic charter in order to specify its components;
- you want to create a new one, but want it to be consistent with the previous one.
👉 Examples of elements to specify:
- logo,
- typography
- colors,
- illustrations, etc.
Step 6: Set a budget
Providing an estimate of the overall budget will help potential service providers prepare their quotes.
☝️ Be careful not to underestimate it! It must be consistent with your requirements, but also include all the elements that will impact the project in the long term, such as the scalability of software or a website, for example.
Step 7: Specify lead times
In your specifications, specify the deadline by which the final deliverable will be delivered. As with the budget, don't underestimate the time needed to complete each element. Be realistic, otherwise you risk :
- miss deadlines ;
- end up with a botched project.
💡 Good to know: the delivery date in the specifications may be included in a quotation or invoice and become contractually binding.
For complex projects, don't hesitate to set different milestones (with intermediate deliverables) and propose a schedule in the form of a Gantt chart.
Step 8: List functional specifications
Functional specialties present the project's objectives and what the product will do. 💭
They are also used to establish the technical specialties, but we'll come back to that later.
Functionalities
The functional part of the specifications aims to translate, as its name suggests, requirements into functionalities.
The more you detail this part :
- the less the functionalities will be open to interpretation ;
- and the closer your deliverables will be to your objectives.
👉 Example:
- title,
- objective,
- description,
- target,
- sub-features,
- constraints and management rules,
- priority level.
💡 How can you make sure you list all the functionalities to be developed without forgetting any? Some teams opt for impact mapping. This method consists in mapping the site by asking:
- What is the site's main objective?
- Who are the targets?
- What are their needs?
- What functionalities can meet these needs?
Example of impact mapping for a hotel website:
The tree structure
If your project concerns a website or mobile application, propose in the specifications your vision of its tree structure.
👉 Example:
- categories,
- sub-categories,
- navigation,
- organization.
💡 To make it easier for the reader to read, present it in the form of a diagram. Let's take our hotel example again:
The content
Finally, list in this section the different types of content that will appear on your website.
👉 Some examples:
- blog articles,
- videos,
- images,
- downloadable documents.
Feel free to provide details on how you'd like them presented and managed.
Step 9: List the technical specifications
If the functional specifications detail what the product will do, the technical specifications detail how the product will do it. ⚙️
It therefore aims to highlight the technical requirements and constraints of the project to meet the needs, and also mentions preferences for development methods and processes.
👉 Some examples:
- online payment methods,
- hosting solution,
- server architecture,
- choice of platform or CMS,
- administration tools,
- integration constraints,
- computer language,
- data security management,
- maintenance,
- migration,
- browser compatibility, etc.
Step 10: Add any appendices
Lastly, add any documents that may be useful for thinking about or carrying out the project as appendices.
👉 Example:
- Wireframes,
- mock-ups,
- mock-ups,
- sketches.
💡 Using the right software makes it much easier to draw up your specifications.
⚒️ Take the example of monday.com, a collaborative working platform for project managers.
This 100% customizable tool gives you a centralized, real-time view of your company's workflows and projects. As a result, you'll be able to pinpoint the key elements of your specifications, such as company priorities, deadlines and available human and budgetary resources. This information is visible to all, encouraging communication and collaboration.
Download sample project specifications
To help you draw up the specifications for your project, Appvizer provides you with a sample specification sheet in PDF format for you to fill in. It's up to you to fill it in with your own information!
Example of a complete specification
🔎 Note: The company names, people, tools and data mentioned in this example are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to real entities would be purely coincidental.
Company presentation
Name: Cultiveo
Sector: Sustainable AgriTech
Market: France / Spain / Belgium
Core business: Development of intelligent sensors to optimize irrigation and soil management
Flagship products: SensoDrop weather sensor, SolTrack mobile application
Vision: By 2028, Cultiveo aims to reduce water consumption on European farms by 30%.
Contacts: Digital projects manager, IT department, software product manager
Project overview
Background
Cultiveo's rapid growth makes internal project management complex. Each team uses a different tool, resulting in duplication and a lack of visibility.
The project consisted in creating a unified management tool for all teams (technical, marketing, logistics), in order to centralize workflows and gain in efficiency.
Objectives
- Specific: create an internal multi-team project management portal
- Measurable: increase the rate of on-time deliveries by 40%.
- Achievable: team already trained in Notion and Trello
- Realistic: budget and internal resources validated
- Timed: production scheduled to start before November 30, 2025
Scope
The project concerns 5 departments, i.e. 110 users in 3 countries. It must operate in 3 languages: French, Spanish and English.
Existing elements
- Organization templates on Trello (to be migrated)
- Visual identity (.AI and .PDF graphic guidelines)
- Reserved internal domain name: projet.cultiveo.work
- Onboarding documentation shared on Google Drive
Project target
Target: employees in charge of project follow-up in the product, IT, and R&D divisions.
Main persona: Karim, junior project manager, 28 years old, uses Notion on a daily basis, looking for a more visual and structuring tool to manage multi-country projects.
Competitor evaluation
3 solutions analyzed:
- FlowTrack: very comprehensive but expensive
- ProManage360: good API compatibility, but dated UX
- Stratiplan: easy to learn, but limited reporting capabilities
Sought-after differentiators: flexibility, multi-user, connectors with Google suite
Graphic and ergonomic charter
- Logo: square version + text version (SVG and PNG)
- Colors: forest green (#0E9438), sand (#E7D7BA), black (#101010)
- Typography: Inter (regular, medium, bold)
- Illustrations: outline vector pictograms
Budget
Budget: €14,000 excl. VAT for customization, integration, documentation and 1-year maintenance
Timeframe
- Launch: September 10, 2025
- Beta version: October 15, 2025
- Final acceptance: November 25, 2025
Milestones will be tracked via a Gantt chart integrated into the platform.
Functional specifications
Expected functionalities
- Project creation with phases and sub-tasks
- Role assignment and access rights management
- Kanban view + weekly planning view
- Notification center and comment system
- Modification history
Tree structure
- Dashboard
- My projects
- Calendar
- Resource center
- Administration
Content
- Project descriptions
- Sample deliverables
- Follow-up forms
- Attachments (.docx, .pdf, .csv)
Technical specifications
- European cloud (OVHcloud or Scaleway)
- SSO authentication (Google, Azure)
- Multilingual support
- REST API for internal CRM integration
- Daily backup + AES-256 encryption
- RGPD compliance
Appendices
- Cultiveo graphic charter
- Low-fidelity wireframe mock-ups (PDF)
- Competitor analysis table
- User roles diagram
Make writing your specifications easier with AI: 5 tools
Writing specifications can quickly become a Chinese puzzle: too much information, not enough time, and an already busy team. The good news is that AI can help!
By analyzing your needs, your project scope and your objectives, artificial intelligence can generate a structured, clear and 100% customized document. It guides you step by step, from company presentation to functional or technical specifications.
✅ Results:
- you save time,
- you forget fewer key parts,
- you produce a solid project book.
It's also a smart tool for aligning all stakeholders from the outset, and avoiding grey areas during the course of the project.
And no, it's not just for geeks or big companies. Many tools are available free of charge or at low cost, and can be integrated into your favorite project management software.
🛠️ Some AI tools to help you:
-
Notion AI: perfect for structuring directly in your collaborative workspace;
-
ChatGPT: generates customized specification templates from detailed prompts;
-
Tability: transforms your project objectives into clear, time-tracked action plans, perfect for applying the SMART method directly in your CDC;
-
Whimsical AI: creates diagrams, tree diagrams, wireframes and mind maps with intelligent help, super useful for visually illustrating project scope or functionality;
-
Taskade AI : generates workflows from a simple brief, useful for defining project stages and automating their breakdown into tasks.
So, are you ready to turn the drudgery of writing specifications into an AI-assisted express assignment? 😉
Specifications and agility to anticipate change
Specifications are essential to give your project a framework, and to help you think through and formalize your needs and objectives. It enables you to communicate them to the various stakeholders, so that everyone can make informed decisions in their work and offer solutions to best meet them.
However, you have to accept that the project may evolve, either because new external elements change the situation, or because it's difficult to be exhaustive and perfectly precise in expressing your needs.
This is where working with an agile method becomes interesting, as it allows you to present a functional version of the product as soon as possible, so that you can make adjustments to the specifications during the course of the project.