Designers and developers often use product requirement documents to explain the solution their product will solve. Great products require a shared understanding of these requirements among the development team and external stakeholders. Inform an effective development process by introducing a PRD (product requirement document) template when it’s time to launch a new product or feature.
What is a PRD (product requirement document) template?
A product requirement document (PRD) consists of a brief, high-level overview of the problem or challenge at hand, along with a description of how the product in question will address that issue.
Although a good PRD should be concise, it must be long enough to cover the key aspects of the product, its general features, and the intended audience. It lists the functions of the product and proposes one or more relevant use cases. You may write a PRD for a brand-new product or for a substantial product update that includes several new functions and features.
Why use a PRD (product requirement document) template?
Developing successful products requires an understanding of why people will want to use your finished release. The PRD defines your audience and illustrates their pain points, along with providing a smart solution to these issues. It guides the purpose of the product throughout development and helps keep your teams on track.
In addition, using a PRD for product development can:
- Enhance team understanding of and engagement with product objectives and requirements
- Control the course of product development to prevent delays and budget inflation
- Reduce the likelihood of changes and code rewrites late in product development
- Create a single central resource for relevant product information
- Improve accuracy of release date estimations for more efficient project planning
- Ensure the development of precise, measurable, and defined use cases
- Shield your teams from scope creep
- Confirm alignment with product vision and objectives as well as stakeholder expectations
What’s included in a PRD (product requirement document) template?
When you write a product requirements document, streamline the process by taking advantage of a template. Examples typically include a combination of these important components:
- Objective: The goal you want to achieve with your product and what problem it will solve
- Stakeholders: Who is involved in product development at the individual, team, and department levels — product developers might require subject-matter experts or other external contractors.
- Performance metrics: How the project might succeed or not, what indicates a favorable outcome, and how the product creates value for your users
- Scope: Solutions included in your product, features and components outside the project scope, multiple phases of the project (if any), and possible expansion of the scope for future releases
- Audience personas: Who your users are, what they want, and how your product will solve a specific problem for them
- User experience design: What the product looks like, how the wireframes fit together, and how your users see the solution in context
- Deliverables: What the final product will entail, including whether you will deliver a completed product or released phased versions, as well as the associated deadlines
- Assumptions: Facts and estimates that will drive development, how you will validate the accuracy of these assumptions during the development process, and dependencies that might need to take place for the project to succeed
- Threats: Factors that may put the success of your project at risk, areas of uncertainty your team will encounter, how you will prepare for these issues, and any project constraints such as budget or regulatory compliance
You can personalize your PRD template by selecting the sections above that make sense for your product, industry, and organization. Some project managers prefer a simplified version of the product requirements document, limited to just a few categories.
For example, Agile development teams increasingly adopt a lean product requirements document template to drive their sprint sessions. This one-page document typically includes the following sections:
- Product overview: Current status, release date, and team members
- Objectives: Goals of product development and their alignment with mission, vision, and organizational objectives
- Background: Reason for product development, user problems and pain points, related market trends, competitive landscape, market research, and other relevant assumptions
- Use cases: Product features and how they support the user stories you’ve developed, along with proposed success metrics
- User experience (UX): Product design, wireframes, and mock-ups along with details about how your users will encounter and interact with these components
PRD (product requirement document) template on staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud
Personalize a PRD for your next endeavor with an intuitive, eye-catching template from staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud. With Work OS as our core suite of software, we can customize solutions across industries for businesses of all sizes. Simply download the PRD template and populate it with your product details. Share your finished document with stakeholders instantly and integrate our solutions seamlessly with your go-to project management apps.
Use staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud to create an intuitive product requirement document template to set the stage for successful product development.Related templates on staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud
Consider staging-mondaycomblog.kinsta.cloud your product management mainstay. After you’ve made your first PRD, check out these related tools.
Software requirements specifications template
If your product happens to be a software program, try this simple yet powerful SRS template. Start with sections such as Purpose, Convention, Audience, Background Documents, Assumptions and Dependencies, References, Scope, and User Characteristics. Streamline your selections for a brief statement or use this template as a starting point to build out a fully fledged project plan.
Product development template
Companies that use the scrum strategy can take advantage of this tailored product development template. Sections with rows let you list your related initiatives for each quarter. Then, complete the columns for product details including Scope, Tier, Domain, Opportunity, Problem, Owner, and Impact.
Frequently asked questions
How do you write a PRD product requirement document?
To write a PRD, start by defining the problem your product will solve. Then, explain how you’ll create that solution, what features it includes, and why it benefits your target audience.
Depending on the size and complexity of the project, you can also include other relevant information such as stakeholders, assumptions, deliverables, design and user experience requirements, background data, and other details that create a shared understanding.
Is PRD same as BRD?
A PRD is not the same as a BRD (business requirements document). The BRD describes the business needs of a specific project, not the purpose of product development. However, you’ll likely need a BRD to support project execution after you have an approved PRD in hand and the development cycle begins.
Power Purposeful Product Development
Above all, your PRD should be readable to a range of audiences and provide a comprehensive yet concise case for your planned product build. When you create a well-developed product requirement document, you can help keep your teams on track as they work toward their goals.
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