6 Proven Practices to write & manage PRDs like a Pro — (3)
In the previous blogs of this PRD series, we discussed the importance of Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) for Product Managers and the company, and some proven practices to write and manage PRDs better & efficiently, and make this document even more effective for the entire team
In this blog, we will talk about one of the most effective proven practices to follow while writing PRDs. This will ensure that you write better, error-free, and foolproof PRDs
Proven Practice №3 — Peer to Peer PRD Reviews
This is definitely one of the most effective practices to make sure that you have covered all the corner cases of the product/feature that you are developing, and that you also get a good amount of feedback, ideas, and thought invoking questions from your team if done correctly
Get your PRDs reviewed early by other product folks in your company
Here are the top 3 reasons why you should do Peer to Peer PRD reviews:
- So that you are not missing out on any corner cases
- Your understanding of the existing products is foolproof and any integration or build on top of the existing products that you might be doing is fool-proofed as well
- Will give you an opportunity to get different POVs and feedbacks on the same problem statement that you’re trying to solve. Someone in your team might have a different and better way to solve the problem as well
A Product Manager is not someone who always innovates new solutions to problems, but is someone who assimilates information and ideas from various sources, and analyzes them to identify the optimal solution
So try to get as much feedback and ideas on the problem you are solving here, and then analyze them all to come up with the best possible solution that can be implemented in the given situation
When to do Peer to Peer PRD reviews?
You can do this at two stages of the PRD writing process —
First PRD Review
Do this after you have chalked out the solutions and discussed them with your team (UX, Design, Tech, Data), and did your first set of usability testings with the paper prototypes. Post which you would have implemented the feedback you got from your team and the users to your solutions. At this stage, you can do the first PRD review with your product folks, before presenting it to your company stakeholders/business heads
Doing a PRD review at this stage will give you the much-needed insights and feedback you need about the solutions you have drafted. But you also have some user data to back up the solutions you are presenting, but again it is at a very preliminary stage, which means that there is enough room for improvisations to the solutions
At this stage you haven’t invested a lot of time into designing the solutions and the development hasn’t started yet, plus you haven’t presented anything to your business stakeholders yet, which makes it even easier to make changes/improvements at this stage
Get as much feedback you can at this stage, and go back to the whiteboard to re-analyze the options and select the best possible solution
Second PRD Review
Do this at the finalizing of the wireframe stage. The purpose of PRD review at this stage is to give a download to your team about the upcoming product/feature/flow you are building, the purpose of it, and how the flow is going to look
At this stage, you have already done multiple usability testings, and the wireframes you present are backed by a good amount of user data
At this point, you can expect questions and feedback related to product launch, adoption, flow overlaps/flow influence with other existing products, etc. Utilize this discussion to see if you have covered all the scenarios and if there is still something you need to work on
How to do Peer to Peer PRD review?
Initiate collaborative meet
Pitch this process to your product folks during daily standup/product meetings. Tell them the purpose behind this and what you are looking for in this PRD review discussion
Ask them for a common time slot (about 40 mins), where you can take them through the problem statement and solutions. And you would like them to ask questions, give feedback post your presentation
Keep it simple
You do not need to create a separate presentation for this. You can take them through the PRD you are writing. To give them more time to think and understand the problem, you can share a non-editable version of your PRD document with them
Don’t be defensive
Getting personally attached to your own ideas & solutions is natural. But be aware of such emotions. You do not need to have answers to all their questions, and it is okay for you to not know some things. That is precisely the reason you are doing this review at a very early stage
Take the feedback and ideas into consideration, and analyze them logically with data. There is nothing for you to lose with this PRD review session, it can only provide you insights, data, ideas which you didn’t know before
Doing Peer-to-Peer PRD reviews in a constructive manner can bring in more participation from the entire product team. Every Product Manager in the company will feel involved and a part of all the products/features that exist and are being developed in the company
It will also increase the combined product knowledge of the team, which will make Knowledge Transfers easier and smoother
Including Peer-to-Peer PRD reviews as part of the product process, will help in reducing errors in the product development process
