6 Proven Practices to write & manage PRDs like a Pro — (1)
Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) are necessary for every product/feature that needs to be developed. This one document forms the single source of truth about the product/features built. Also, this document will be referred by multiple teams and stakeholders at various stages of the product development process, and other important documents (tech document, test document, product manual, etc) will be churned out based on this document
That’s how important PRDs are for the entire team and company, and the ownership of this document lies with the Product Manager. So in this blog, we will talk about how the first proven practice to write & manage PRDs efficiently. This practice is the first step to creating professional PRDs that can be utilized by your team & stakeholders effortlessly
Proven Practice №1 — Use a standard PRD template
Using a standard PRD template every time you write a PRD will ensure that you have covered all the important things you need to write in the PRD, plus it is also easy for your team to navigate through your PRDs once they know the format
Ideally, your company should follow a standardized PRD template. But if that is not the case, especially with startups where the processes are not so defined, you can always propose PRD templates from your side and convince your Product Head/Founders to implement a standardized PRD template for the company
Here is a good PRD template that is simple and covers all the important sections that a PRD should have:
These are some of the good reasons that you can propose to your company for standardizing the PRD template:
1. Will ensure that all the PRDs contain the necessary information, which will ensure that every feature/product developed has the right basis
2. Reviewing PRDs and approving them will become easier and faster because the reviewer can quickly look through the information to see if anything is missing
3. Reading information sectioned in a standard template is always easier, this will help the entire team of developers, designers, business stakeholders to read through the PRDs easily, hence saving them effort and time
4. This is a good way to show the investors and senior management, that the company follows best practices and has implemented good processes which will automatically ensure good output from the team
