Project Management Guide

A good product requirement document is very important for a good Quality product. Through out the product life cycle, Product Requirement Document (PRD) has a great role. It is generally created by the domain expert or subject matter expert of the product owner company. It it is an existing product, company can take the feedback of the product from the end users and users can contribute to enhance the Quality of the product.

Before Writing the PRD, the product owner organization must have to know about the views about the similar products available in the market and take a feedback specially about the type of problems customers or end users face while using the product. This is done my hiring domain experts & subject matter experts & conducting surveys. All these inputs goes to PRD. If the PRD part is done well, half job is done.

Here are some points which can guide new business analysts on writing a better Product Requirement Document: (Sometimes, a new project manager can play the role of a business analyst – he or she might be new to this)

1. PRD must clear that how whole process will be done and all steps of the process must be clear.
2. PRD must contain a well defined purpose of the product.
3. It is important to clear the technical, procedural and business risks and constraints that may affect the project in the PRD.
4. A good product requirement document must specify about the need of the customer and also clear that what are the factors that can make negative effect on the success of the product.
5. PRD must specifies that how to evaluate the quality of the product.
6. PRD must specify the persons who have an interest in project. The list of interested persons contains those people who want positive outcome. Examples of persons contains project managers, member of development team, customers etc.
7. PRD must contain all the information about the environmental, budget or resource constraints that must be considered during planning the project.
8. PRD must also contain the market size and potential market acceptance so that the development team knows the likely volume to design to. As the product which have large market size have different PRD as compared to the market which have a small size.
9. PRD should also contain the information about the solution of the market problem related to the product.
10. It is important that each requirement be well defined in specific measureable terms.  A measure of minimum and maximum should be used wherever possible. The product requirements section describes how each aspect, notable condition, feature or function the product must possess.  The requirements can include function, usability, environmental, interacting and interfacing requirements.

Best idea would be to stick with some good template of a PRD, it will guide you automatically.

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