How do you coordinate with multiple teams when designing a product? Better yet, how do you keep everyone on the same page throughout the process? Project drivers need to create a single source of truth outlining key requirements for their teams. To do that, they use a product requirements document (PRD).
A PRD outlines the required features and purpose of a product. Writing an effective PRD keeps teams aligned on their overall goals and ensures that users get a product they love. To help you knock your PRDs out of the park, we’ll explain why they're essential, outline the steps to writing one, and share a template to help you get started.
A PRD outlines the requirements for a product release. This document guides teams in designing, building, and testing their product. The PRD functions as an overview that covers a product’s:
PRDs map these details to align teams and stakeholders on a project’s next steps, scope, and risks, guiding development from the early stages to release. A PRD typically paints a broad picture, focusing on what is being made rather than how it'll be made.
Market requirements documents (MRDs), sometimes called customer requirements documents, note market opportunities to meet customer needs, while PRDs explain how a product will meet those needs. Even though PRDs can touch on marketing, managers typically reserve that for MRDs.
These documents play different external and internal roles. MRDs review external factors to ensure there’s a market for your product. They tend to focus on customers' needs and how to guide them to your product. Additionally, MRDs tend to play a role later in production than PRDs.
Simplify your development process using this free PRD template to get started
A functional specifications document describes what a product does and how users interact with it. This form gives designers and engineers a point of reference for their goals. In some cases, managers include functional specifications in their PRD.
The agile methodology is an approach to development focused on fast-paced production over pre-planning. Agile teams work in short dev cycles called sprints. This approach ensures that teams can continuously develop new products and updates. That said, agile teams still need to track requirements before a sprint.
Agile PRDs take the shape of nonlinear task boards, giving developers more flexibility in how they achieve goals. They also use agile-specific elements to organize development:
Because of their flexibility, agile PRDs go through more changes during development. Product owners also rely more on stakeholder involvement and team suggestions when writing requirements. In turn, owners have to inform teams and stakeholders when changes occur to ensure alignment.
Writing a PRD gives your teams and stakeholders a single source of truth on the product you’re developing, so when developers have questions about core features, they have the tools to answer them. Here are a few other benefits of PRDs:
Here are six steps to writing a PRD.
Start your PRD with basic information about your product and why you’re creating it. Begin with the product’s purpose and your design guidelines. Alternatively, you can explain what your product does and how it functions. By aligning teams around early, you can map the steps needed to finish production.
Write out basic information about your product and its design by asking questions like:
Next, list the features a product needs to meet its purpose. Creating a feature hierarchy will also direct your teams to the highest-value functions first. Remember to explain why you prioritized certain features to guide developers.
PRDs emphasize the features drawing customers to a product. So, you need to research their users and what they find valuable. From there, design a product built around this intended functionality. For example, note when features come into play automatically or as a part of a manual process.
You can define features by asking:
While user personas are often fictionalized characters, they represent your actual customers and can help you better articulate who they are and what they care about.
When writing a user persona, include traits like:
Explain how your product release ties into your overall strategy. Product releases signal a chance to break into new markets or stand out against current competitors. They can also attract attention before unveiling a new product lineup or service offering. Whatever your strategic management goals are, you should emphasize them in a PRD.
You can contextualize strategic goals by asking:
Create release criteria before full development begins, setting a standard for the features and performance requirements a product must reach. Your release criteria outlines the capabilities your product needs before it can launch.
To write effective release criteria, you should:
With your first draft put together, you can review and revise your work with input from your teams and stakeholders. If they have questions you can’t answer, take the time to research them. Going through revisions ensures your PRD covers as much ground as possible.
Your PRD can also adapt when required features change during development. So, as you move into new phases of production, update your PRD in response to new challenges and opportunities.
To help explain further, we’ve written a sample PRD. For this example, assume you’re a product manager at a company offering productivity software.
Your platform uses automation to fill gaps and optimize workflows at clients’ companies. Now, you want to develop a mobile app for your software. This PRD example shows how that looks on the page.
Product details:
Project: Mobile app development
Target release: 1.0
Document owner: Ed Carlisle
Project manager: Ed Carlisle
Designer: Alexis Cho
Developer: Morgan Rivers
Project objectives:
Feature requirements:
User personas:
Release criteria:
Ready to start writing your own product requirements document? Check out Figma’s PRD template and get started today.
When working on your next PRD, avoid these common pitfalls:
Your product requirements document aligns teams early and focuses attention on your main priorities. As a result, it can improve strategic planning and shape priorities throughout the entire development process. With a well-written PRD, you can meet users’ needs without going out of scope.
To brainstorm requirements and collaborate on implementation, try FigJam’s online whiteboard. With FigJam, your teams can collaborate in a shared space to exchange feedback, track progress, and design new solutions.
