What PRD template provides a useful roadmap?

An ideal PRD discusses users, shows features in a visual prototype, and includes key hypotheses.

Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) are documents product managers use to achieve several important objectives. They (1) create purpose and context for the teams they work with, allowing key stakeholders to feel heard; and (2) clearly communicate the vision.

Experts in the industry, however, believe PRDs should be eliminated for several reasons. PRDs, they believe suffer from two big problems. The first is bloat. Product managers (PMs) collect discussions about product and long documents are rarely read. The second is rigidity. PRDs are also seen as inflexible documents tied to the “waterfall” development method. PRDs assume a number of features that users want, and are not updated quickly enough to create a useful product.

Given these criticisms, PRDs should change in two ways:

To optimize these objectives, I outline the core features of the ideal PRD and suggest that Atlassian’s 1-page PRD (see screenshots below) is a great starting point.

Create shared purpose. We create products to help users and solve their problems. Without a description of those users’ use cases, team-members will not clearly understand what they are building for. In other words, the objectives section summarizes the key components of what product managers call a “market requirements document.” Atlassian’s PRD discusses those user stories and clearly prioritizes that features that come out of that story under the “Requirements” table on the first page. Furthermore, the section “Not Doing” on the second page provides rationales for feature choices that were explicitly discarded. By making those clear, teammates will not go backward on those choices, increasing efficiency and sharpening the product vision. Finally,

Communicate the vision clearly. What better way to communicate product vision than to literally draft a very basic prototype of the product. The PRD can include a user flow that shows how users interact with the product; a marvel prototype would be helpful here. Additionally, the PRD should consider corner cases, but not let these define the product. By corner cases, I mean low-probability set of user choices that can harm a user’s experience. Atlassian’s PRD also addresses this concern. The section “User Interaction and Design” features the prototype mockup. This prototype can be made even clearer by using tools like Invision or Marvel that allow users to interact with the prototype dynamically.

Embrace flexibility. Lean startup method advises founders to consider and test risky assumptions. PRDs can draw from this insight and create a plan or even use data to start testing these assumptions. These prototypes can also be subjected to user interviews, with the PM sitting down with users and observing how they use the prototype.

The section “Questions” on the second page addresses these concerns. For instance, after analyzing the data linked under the first page “Customer research,” the team noted that the lack of demand for Blackberries or offline modes for the app.

Ultimately, a PRD is a tool that helps cross-disciplinary teams — with different jargon and priorities — to communicate and share a vision better. Atlassian’s example is a great model on which to build.

Related posts:

EOS caused quite some stir when Dan Larimer gave his pitch a few months ago. He basically said it was the Ethereum killer, and smart people who are NOT fools remembered right away that ether was a…

As a depressive and confirmed pessimist I’ve always tended to look at the world with a certain sense of cynicism but in the last decade I’ve turned into a full blown Eeyore, a gloomy donkey ready to…

The students had often heard strange tales about the eerie noises that echoed through the woods near their school. Rumors spoke of ghostly whispers, screams, and howling that could freeze anyone’s…