Writing Effective

Product Requirement Document

Presented by :
Ade Putri Aulia Wijharnasir (Chiko)
Hi! A Product Manager in Flip.id with 2.5 years experience in this career. I
graduated from Marine Engineering in 2015 and continue my Master
Degree in Technology Management using LPDP Scholarship in 2017.

It’s me
Being a Social Media Project Manager in 2017 for 4 months and
shifting as Product Manager since July 2019.

I love to explore many new things and share my learning experience to

Chiko
others. Let’s have fun together! :)
What you think you do when
you want to write PRD
What you
actually do
when you want
to write PRD
 Communication
PM Management

Skill Set Technical : business, UX, and

technology
 Communication
PM Management

Skill Set Technical : business, UX, and

technology
 1. Own the product
2. Gathering problem and Finding Root Cause

PM 3. Define Product Strategy and Product Roadmap

4. Define Product Requirement

Responsibility 5. Collaborate with other Stakeholders

(engineering, marketing, operational, etc)
6. Monitoring product performance and identify
which area need to be improved.
 1. Own the product
2. Gathering problem and Finding Root Cause

PM 3. Define Product Strategy and Product Roadmap

4. Define Product Requirement

Responsibility 5. Collaborate with other Stakeholders

(engineering, marketing, operational, etc)
6. Monitoring product performance and identify
which area need to be improved.
 1. Own the product
2. Gathering problem and Finding Root Cause

PM 3. Define Product Strategy and Product Roadmap

4. Define Product Requirement

Responsibility 5. Collaborate with other Stakeholders

(engineering, marketing, operational, etc)
6. Monitoring product performance and identify
which area need to be improved.
 Product Requirement Document
is a living document that help Product Manager to define
product requirement thoroughly and propose any solution
by gathering problem, finding root cause while aligning it
What’s PRD? to product strategy and product roadmap.

PRD is a document that helped Product Manager to

collaborate with other stakeholders in product
development phase.
 PRD is a document which describes what product that we
want to build. It is also drives the effort that might spent by
entire team in the company.

By creating PRD, a PM can provide complete enough

Why we information to avoid ambiguity while articulate products’s
purpose, features, functionality and behaviour. to do their
create it? jobs.

We can say, if the PRD is done well, it still might not be a

successful product, but it is certain that if the PRD is not
done well, it is nearly impossible for a good product to
result.
PRD Function
in General
Single Source of Truth Guideline
All entire team in company will go to the PRD A PRD is not giving any specific way on how
if they need to have more detail about the the product should develop. But, a PRD will
product. People can find relevant research, describe what problems that we want to solve
related link, etc in the PRD. and what product that we want to build to
solve this problem.
So, PM need to put any relevant information in
the PRD. Thus, a PRD will be a guideline for all teams,
so each team can define how should we build
Moreover, as a single source of truth, PRD this and how much effort that we need to
need to be a living document. It means PRD is spend.
a document that continuously updated based
on every changes happened towards the
product.
Communication Tools
A PRD is being used as communication
tools between multiple teams. So, every
stakeholders can align themselves and
reduce unclarity during the product
development cycle.

Moreover, PRD also helps team to align

their expectation towards product.
What’s before PRD?
Before writing a PRD, PM have to understand what product that they
want to build. It can be done by learning the Market Requirement
Document and Research Result. Our goal with PRD is to come
Understanding the problem and product means studying your up with a good product which
customers, your competitors, and your team’s capabilities, including solve user’s problem in most
available technologies.
effective way.
Do more discussion and research. Broaden your point of view.
 Define Problem Categorize Problem Problem Validation

Understand the problem? There are many problems, PM Before you propose a solution,
will always deal with a bunch of validate it by doing research.
What is the problem? problems in their daily life. You can do qualitative or
When it happened? quantitative research.
Who have the problems? Then, what is the most
Where it happened? important? What is the most Validate problem before you go
Why it happens? urgent? to solution.
How could it happened?
Never jump into solution.
 Define Solution Analyze the Impact Prioritize Product Roadmap

You will always have crazy A good solution is a PM will always come with Communicate your idea
idea to solve problems. solution which the most bunch of problems as well plan with stakeholders
impactful, both for as the solutions. with a good product
Make sure you define it business and user. roadmap.
thoroughly and you have You need to prioritize
discussed it with you what solution that you
teams. want to deliver first.

Why? Because you have

limited resource.
 1. Understand the product purpose and product principle
2. Understand the business goal
Steps to be 3.
4.
Understand your user persona
Understand the problem, you can do research and
taken before 5.
talked a lot with your users or stakeholders
Understand the feasibility on building this, make a

and after
good communication with your Engineering team
6. Understand and define the use case
7. Write the draft
writing PRD 8. Share the draft and get feedback from your
stakeholders
9. Tidy it up!
10. Prioritize your plans and start to plan the development
1. Communicate your draft privately with Engineering,
Design and relevant stakeholders before you finalize PRD.
Do not wait until you have perfect PRD. Start with the
simplest one (objective and idea)
2. Use whiteboard (online/offline) to write down each of
idea.
SIMPLE TIPS …
3. Sometimes idea comes when you are working other
things, even when you take a bath. Write the keyword in BEFORE YOU GO TO PRD
sticky note.
4. Block your calendar, turned off your notifications, please
set focus time to call all of your idea.
PRD Format and
Component
Where should I write my PRD?
Where should I write my PRD?
There are no hard-and-fast rules for this, however you can follow this rules to make sure
that your PRD is complete enough

Objective,
Product Product Success Release and Link to
Business Case Sign off
Assessment Requirement Metrics Rollout plan related docs
and Overview
Objective, Business Case and Overview

● Introduction
● Business and/or Market Case as the background of this feature
● Overview of the problem that need to be solved
● Related OKR to this product
Product Assessment
● User persona
● Detail problem that need to be solved
● Competitor benchmarking
● Research result
● Rough plan of Go to Market strategy
● Monetization plan
Product Requirements
● Propose user journey
● Product scope and dependencies
● Requirements from product, design, engineering and other stakeholders
● Design
● User stories and acceptance criteria
● Prioritization (e.g : Eisenhower, I.C.E , R.I.C.E)
● Product timeline
EISENHOWER
CATEGORIZATION
Prioritization
I.C.E Prioritization Framework
I.C.E is an abbreviation of Impact , Confidence, and Ease of Implementation

I.C.E Score = (Impact + Confidence + Ease)/3

ICE - Impact
Impact show how impactful the
product is. You can refer to
AARRR funnel to set a score.
Set a range score 0-10 , higher
score means product give more
impact to lower funnel.
ICE - Confidence
Confidence show how
confidence you for a product to
reach the goal. Set a range
score 0-10 , higher score means
you are more confidence.
ICE - Ease of Implementation
Ease of implementation show how easy to develop a product. Set a range score 0-10
, higher score means easier to develop.
R.I.C.E
Reach | Impact | Confidence |
Prioritization Framework

Effort
Reach Impact Confidence Effort
How many people will this How much will this How confident are we How much of a time
feature affect within a impact individual users? about the impact and investment will this
given time period? Use a multiple choice reach scores? How much initiative require from
scale: data do we have to back product, design, and
Example: up those estimates ? development ?
Customers per quarter, 3 = massive impact
transactions per month 2 = high impact Use a % score where: Measure as persons
1 = medium impact 100% = high confidence per month (how much
0.5 = low impact 80% = medium work one team
0.25 = minimal impact confidence member can do in a
50% = low confidence month).
Example:
How much will this
feature affect
conversion rates?
Success Metrics
● North star metric
● Impact analysis
● Key metrics and Sub metrics
● Link to dashboard for monitoring the metrics
Release and Rollout Plan
● Introduction : overview of the feature
● General Information : short overview of the requirement
● Problem Analysis :list of problem happened in end to end testing / rollout
● Metrics : list of metrics will be monitor during rollout, including the dashboard
link
● Problem Recap & Rollout Decision : list of problem possibly blocked rollout)
● How we rollout : how we setup config
● Go to Market Strategy : how feature will announce to user
● Rollout log : list of everything happened in rollout)
● Data recap : data that got during rollout
Link to related docs
● Technical documentation
● Test plan
● Research result
● UI design
Sign Off
● List down all of stakeholders who relevant with the features
● Choose the PIC from each stakeholder
● Create sign off table and ask them to sign it off before the deadline
● The important thing of sign off section, we need to gather as much as feedback
before everyone sign off the document
Tips that might help you
● Do not forget to understand the problem first before you propose solution. Never jump into a
solution.
● List down every assumption, constraint and dependencies. Communicate it to people.
● Please communicate your draft privately with Engineering, Design and relevant stakeholders before
you finalize PRD, share to company and ask people to signed off. It save your time.
● Put any deadline for people to sign off your PRD, give any disclaimer that the PRD is considered to be
approved if they do not give any sign off until the deadline.
● There is no perfect PRD. But there is a PRD that can help you and your team to build a good product.
● Last tips and the most important. Block your calendar, set your Slack status, turn off notifications.
Seriously, it helps PM to write PRD.
 Please imagine, you are a Product Manager in a new startup
focus on mental health startup. The main product is mood
tracker for patient with cognitive behavior therapy.

STUDY In this case, you find out that patient in cognitive behavior
therapy have difficulties to keep their consistency to track
their mood everyday.

CASE They feel exhausted to input long description whenever they

track their mood. It cause higher uninstall rate in your apps.

You have to find out a solution to solve their problem while

decreasing uninstall rate for your apps.
Basic thing you have to understand before analysis

Product purpose

E.g : to help user with mental health issues ; Product principle : simple and helpful

Business goal

E.g : increase install rate

User persona

E.g : people with mental health issue

You can start by following this steps

Define Problem Categorize Problem Problem Validation

What There are several problems : From user research, we find out 4
Higher uninstall app a. User exhausted of 5 users feel that it is difficult to
When b. Not interesting apps track while giving long description
When user exhausted track their c. etc
mood
Who
User in cognitive behavior therapy
Where
In mobile apps
Why
Due to mental health issues, they
feel difficult in consistency
How
Uninstall and try to find the
simpler mood tracker apps
 Define Solution Analyze the Impact Prioritize Product Roadmap

Give emoticon collections User can stay longer in Based on I.C.E , we can It will be delivered in Q1
which can represents apps prioritize the emoticon 2022 and possible to be
user mood solution done in 2 sprints

Give animation of emotion

wheel chart

etc
 Draft of PRD
Objective
Decrease uninstall rate

Business Case
Number of premium users are affected by how long and how frequently they use our apps. Based on the
analysis, there are 5 main features in this apps. Based on the BCG analysis below, we can put emoticon as
primary feature that improve our north star metrics.

Overview
There is a problem where our user easily to uninstall our apps, because….
 Draft of PRD
Product Assessment

● User persona : user with mental health problems

● Detail problem that need to be solved : high uninstall rate due to complexity while tracking mood

● Competitor benchmarking : apps A enable multi colour palette so it seems more interesting for users, apps B
enable user to create their own emoticon, etc

● Research result : user prefer the simplest way because they feel so exhausted to track their mood all the time

● Rough plan of Go to Market strategy : use social media and KoL to show users the new behaviour that they can
adapt

● Monetization plan : user can enjoy the free version with limited features, user can unlock more emoticons by
subscribe
 Draft of PRD
Product Requirement

● Propose user journey : please see the flowchart here

● Product scope and dependencies : this feature will only enable emoticon without changing the current category

● Requirements from product, design, engineering and other stakeholders : the font used should be Barlow

● Design : see the Hi Fi design in this link

● User stories and acceptance criteria

● Prioritization : based on the I.C.E calculation , so the proposed solution will be prioritized as below

● Product timeline : regarding the prioritization, solution will be done in this timeline
 Draft of PRD
Success Metric

We will measure page view and monitoring the funnel also to find out the bounce rate.

We will measure number of mood tracking in a day.

etc
 Draft of PRD
Release and Rollout Plan

● Introduction : this is a feature of emoticon collection ……

● General Information : we will categorize emoticon to be 5, such as pet, work, etc

● Problem Analysis : some users device probably can’t load the new emoticon

● Metrics : page view and number of mood input in a day by a user

● Problem Recap & Rollout Decision : apps for Android 10 is forced stop, then we rollback after 5 days

● How we rollout : go to this link to setup the remote config ……

● Go to Market Strategy : give push notification

● Rollout log : in day 1, ……

● Data recap : 100K new mood tracked in a day, 1M new users, ….

 Draft of PRD
Link to related doc

UX Research Result Link

Design in Figma

UT Result

Technical Documentation
 Draft of PRD
Sign off

Team Name Sign Off (Y/N)

Product
Engineering
Design
UX Research
Marketing
Operational
What you need to put in your mind :
Writing PRD is a process