How can product managers effectively document product requirements?

For the product manager, the product requirements document (PRD document) is the core output of the job. A rigorous and excellent product requirements document can be of great help to other project personnel, including designers, development engineers, test engineers, operation personnel, etc. But for product managers, writing a complete product requirements document often takes considerable time and effort.

Today let’s take a look at how to improve the efficiency of writing product requirements documents.

Why write a product requirements document?

For larger product development teams, where the product manager may not be able to accurately communicate product development requirements to all team members, a complete product requirements document is required for project participants to read.

First of all, the product manager can put forward reasonable requirements according to the stage operation objectives of the project, and elaborate the overall design background, design ideas, functional scope, interaction logic, page details and other information through PRD documents.

Secondly, team members can quickly obtain the information they need to save the time cost of repeated communication and carry out their work better.

Finally, the product requirements document is also one of the important attachments before a product project is put into development. Team leaders can clearly understand why such a product needs to be developed from the product requirements document. Other stakeholders of the project can also refer to the requirements document at any time for basic information about the project.

In summary, the product requirements document has three core functions:

• Communicate product development requirements;
• Ensure smooth communication among team members;
• Establish product quality control standard.

The importance of product requirements documentation in a project is self-evident. So what are some tips for product managers to better document product requirements?

What does the product requirements document contain?

The following figure provides an overview of the basic content that the product requirements document should present.

1. Product Overview

In the first part of the product requirement document, it is necessary to explain the r&d background and overall planning of the whole project, so that readers can quickly understand the requirement background and product positioning. Secondly, the product requirements document itself is described, after each revision need to record, convenient for readers to understand the revision and update of product requirements document. This part mainly includes the following contents:

• Description of project
• The vocabulary
• Document Revision History
• Version description, etc.

2. Functional scope

In this part, users and market demands of products should be analyzed and sorted out in combination with users, business rules and market environment, differences and advantages should be identified, and business processes and demand lists should be formulated. The business logic diagram, flow chart, product structure diagram and other charts can be used to display the product logic and functions in the simplest way. Team members can learn user information and behavior information according to this part, which is also helpful for further understanding of the product.

3. Functional details and prototypes

The first is to list the general list of functions, combing the product functions one by one, and each function can correspond to the previous product objectives.

Secondly, functional details are displayed. Prototypes are quickly drawn through Mockplus and other prototyping tools. In combination with annotations in key parts, the display, interaction and data logic of business modules are described in detail for developers to view and understand.

4. Global description

This section includes design specifications, data statistics, general rule notes, and other information for designers and developers to view product details.

5. Test requirements

The product usually has a BETA or BETA version before it goes live, and the product manager needs to customize the functionality or performance of the test product.

6. Non-functional requirements

Non-functional requirements are the extreme cases of users’ routine operation of products, involving many aspects, including product performance, security, reliability, scalability and so on.

7. Product operation and market analysis

Completion of product development is not the end, the end of the product is to win the market. How to operate the product after it is launched? What is the recommended promotion strategy? How do product managers and operations work together? And so on.

Product requirements document writing skills

How to effectively complete the product requirements document writing? We can explain it from the following four aspects:

• Clear your document structure
• Describe every detail
• The semantics are clear without ambiguity
• Illustrate with a prototype or design draft

1. Clarify the document structure

The content of a product requirements document is often numerous and complex. Therefore, when writing the product requirements document, the product manager must clarify the structure of the document to improve the readability of the document, so that readers can quickly understand the ideas of the document and consult important information.

To view a product requirements document as a product, first of all, it is necessary to sort out its structure, as shown in the document content above, and then write in order, so as to write a clear structure, hierarchical product requirements document.

2. Elaborate on every detail

When we stand in the perspective of product managers, there is often a mistake: the logic of this functional module of the product is very simple, common in the industry, developers must also understand, do not need to explain separately.

Product managers often have a good understanding of the functionality and logic of a product, but from a developer or tester’s perspective, often have a poor understanding of the details and logic of many products. Therefore, product managers must document product requirements in detail. Not only do you need to elaborate on all the details of page logic, interaction logic, data logic, but you also need to check whether there are omissions or errors from the perspective of development and testing to ensure that the subsequent development work is orderly.

3. Clear semantics without ambiguity

When writing the product requirements document, it is necessary to make the semantics clear, and there can be no words or sentences that make readers have ambiguity, such as: probably, may, seems and so on. On the other hand, the expression of product definition must be unified throughout the whole text. For example, when writing an APP product requirements document, the previous article wrote “home page round broadcast chart”, the latter can no longer use “home page Banner”, “Banner” and other names.

4. Illustrate with a prototype or design draft

Product requirements documents often contain a lot of text, and the rest of the team may not fully understand the text when reading the details of some features. At this time, if you use the prototype diagram or design draft to explain, you can supplement the information that is difficult to describe in text, and help readers quickly understand the product functions and internal logic. Therefore, when writing product requirements documents, the product manager needs to explain them with prototype drawings or design drafts.

The prototype or design of a product is often revised repeatedly, and the product requirements document must be updated synchronously so that the reader can keep up to date with the latest developments of the project. But it would be inefficient if the product manager had to manually replace the artwork in the documentation every time a prototype or design was modified! In fact, the use of efficient product requirements documentation magic can solve this problem.

Product requirements document writing magic tool

With the continuous development of product development process, traditional Office software can no longer meet the requirements of writing product documents. Today we recommend, is a specialized document tool for product managers – copy. In addition to the problems mentioned above, copy can also solve the review communication, version management and other product requirements document writing difficulties, so that product managers can create professional product documents more efficiently. Let’s have a look

1. Write rich text to fully express product requirements

Copy brand new rich text online writing mode, in line with the daily editing habits of product managers, can quickly complete the document writing. The written content is automatically saved, and the historical version can be viewed at any time for easy comparison and modification. In addition, the product manager can also directly upload local product documents, and the copycat will automatically parse the directory and generate a document tree for easy reference.

2. Deeply combine with the prototype drawing and design draft to explain and demonstrate each other

The product manager can insert the design document when writing the product requirement document. If the design document is updated and modified, the product manager can synchronize the content in the document without repeated insertion. In addition, when team members make comments on the design draft, they can also refer to the document for explanation, so that team members can see the relevant information at a glance.

3. Real-time review and efficient communication

After the document is edited, it can be shared with team members through a one-click link. Team members can select the text to add comments, review the document online, express project opinions clearly, and realize efficient communication of the product development team.

4. Trace modification records and back up historical versions

Usually, the writing of product requirements document is not in one step, and it is often modified repeatedly according to the review opinions of team members, so it will produce a large number of iterative versions. For product managers, how to manage the historical version of product requirements document is a big problem. When you write product documents in Copy, you can automatically generate historical versions for every modification. You can jump to view and recover at any time, which is convenient for management.

5. Online preview and sharing are more convenient

Product requirement documents written or uploaded by Mich online can be quickly shared with team members through links, and team members can view them freely after obtaining links. When the product requirement documents are modified, team members can still view the latest version through links.

Use copy www.mockplus.cn/idoc/?hmsr=… And other efficient and convenient product document writing tools can simplify the process of product document writing, improve the document writing ability of product managers, so that product managers get twice the result with half the effort.

conclusion

As an important communication document for the product development team, the quality of the document will directly affect whether each department can define the function and logic of the product. A simple, understandable, logical product requirements document can make team communication more efficient, so as to effectively improve the efficiency of the product development team.