What Is a Product Design Requirement Document?

What Is a Product Design Requirement Document?

A product design requirement document (PRD) is a comprehensive document consisting of all the necessary information a product development team needs to deliver a successful product. It guides the team in creating a product with the end-user in mind. 

A PRD uses a top-down approach that is commonly utilized in the Waterfall project management model. Nowadays, PRDs have evolved to be operational in Agile environments, making it easier to align the product manager, development team, and other stakeholders around product development and delivery within set timeframes.

Essential sections of a product design requirement document

Agile teams use a product design document as a real-time collaborative approach to align on critical product details. The product manager creates the PRD based on product requirements, features, and timelines. 

The list below summarizes six essential sections to include in your product design document:

1. Project objective: This section establishes the purpose of the product along with its vision and goals. It itemizes all the desirable features the product must have to satisfy customers. 
2. Project specifics: This section lists key stakeholders, release dates, project status, and other necessary details.
3. User stories: This section defines the product features in user stories.
4. User flow and design: This section is useful to describe user flow. In some projects, it may be necessary to flesh out the user stories with wireframes and mock-ups. 
5. Metrics: Every assumption should be backed by a metric. Create a hypothesis about the impact of a specific product feature. The success rate of this hypothesis is measured against instances of user interaction with the feature. 
6. Future roadmaps: Roadmaps help plan the necessary steps and milestones for the product to reach its potential. This helps the development team and other stakeholders understand how the product will evolve.

Challenges of using a product design requirement document

There are a few challenges that may come up when creating a product design document: 

1. Becoming obsolete: Most product teams operate under strict time constraints. It’s often difficult to go back and make changes to the documentation after reviewing it and communicating with other teams or stakeholders. This may result in the product design requirement document being different from the actual data and inputs the development team works with.
2. Lack of participation: Depending on a company's culture and how actively team members review or update the product design requirement document, there may be a lack of interest or participation in the process. In an ideal scenario, team members deliberate to ensure their specs align with the team's overall interests. 

A product design requirement document serves as a valuable tool for cross-team collaboration. Updating the PRD as a project progresses ensures that development and stakeholder interests remain aligned.