Product Requirements Document (PRD) explained using the Mars Colony

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Introduction

My first attempt at writing a blog on PRDs turned out to be quite dry with too much theoretical explanations. I was thinking of writing a sample PRD on a cool product to go along with it for quite some time now. As a Product Manager, I have the opportunity to work on some pretty cool projects, but I believe the Mars Colony is one of the coolest projects that humanity is working on. So here’s my attempt on writing a PRD on the Mars Colony followed by a note on what a good PRD should contain. Whether you’re a Product Manager, an engineer, or just someone who’s curious about the future of human space exploration, I hope you’ll find this informative and interesting.

A quick disclaimer before we proceed: Writing a PRD for the Mars colony is no small task, or in fact might not even make sense as it is a huge project made up of multiple products and projects. It would require a lot of research, collaboration, and creativity. We have to take into account the unique challenges of working on a planet that is not Earth, such as the harsh environment and the distance from Earth. But it’s also an incredibly exciting opportunity to push the limits of what’s possible and to contribute to humanity’s future on a cosmic scale. In the same spirit, this is an attempt to condense the vast project into a single PRD.

Product Requirements Document (PRD): Mars Colony Establishment

Introduction

This Product Requirements Document (PRD) outlines the requirements for the Mars Colony Establishment project. The goal of this project is to establish a sustainable human settlement on Mars by developing the necessary infrastructure and systems to support human life on the planet. This includes the design and development of a spacecraft capable of transporting humans and cargo to Mars, as well as the construction of habitable structures and the development of life support systems.

Target Audience

  • Astronauts who will be living and working on Mars
  • Researchers and engineers who will be working on the project
  • Funding agencies and stakeholders

Stakeholders

  • NASA
  • SpaceX
  • International Space Agencies
  • Private investors

Product Description

The Mars Colony Establishment project will include the following components:

  • Spacecraft:
    • A spacecraft capable of transporting humans and cargo to Mars
    • The spacecraft will have to withstand the harsh conditions of space travel and have the ability to land and take off from Mars
    • The spacecraft should be able to carry at least 100 tons of cargo and 100 people
  • Life Support Systems:
    • Systems for producing food, water, and oxygen on Mars
    • Systems for recycling waste and managing human waste
    • Systems for maintaining temperature and humidity within habitable structure
  • Habitable Structures:
    • Habitable structures for housing and working on Mars
    • The structures should be able to withstand the harsh Martian environment and provide a comfortable living space for the colonists
    • The structures should be equipped with life support systems
  • Transportation Systems:
    • Transportation systems for moving people and goods within the colony
    • The transportation systems should be able to operate in the Martian environment and allow for efficient movement within the colony
  • Resource Extraction:
    • Technology for extracting resources like water, ice, and minerals from the Martian environment
    • The technology should be able to extract resources in a sustainable way and provide enough resources to support the colony
  • Communication Systems:
    • Communication systems for connecting the colony with Earth
    • The communication systems should be able to withstand the harsh conditions of Mars and provide reliable communication with Earth
  • Sustainability Plan:
    • A plan for the long-term sustainability of the colony
    • The plan should include strategies for maintaining and expanding the colony, as well as for managing risks and dealing with emergencies

Acceptance Criteria:

  • The spacecraft is successfully launched and lands on Mars
  • The life support systems are able to sustain human life on Mars
  • The habitable structures provide a comfortable living space for the colonists
  • The transportation systems allow for efficient movement within the colony
  • The resource extraction technology provides enough resources to support the colony
  • The communication systems provide reliable communication with Earth
  • The sustainability plan ensures the long-term survival of the colony

Contraints

  • Budget: The project will require significant investment
  • Time: The project should be completed within a decade
  • Technology: Some of the technology required for this project does not yet exist and will need to be developed

Dependencies

  • NASA’s Perseverance Rover mission on Mars

What is a PRD and how do you write a good one?

Hopefully by now, you’ll have got the concept of what a PRD is and what it is trying to achieve. A Product Requirements Document (PRD) is a document that outlines the specific requirements and specifications for a product or feature that is being developed. It is used to communicate the expectations and goals of the product to the development team, stakeholders, and other relevant parties. The purpose of a PRD is to ensure that all team members have a clear understanding of what the final product or feature should look like and how it should function.

A good Product Requirements Document (PRD) typically includes the following components:

  1. Introduction: This section provides an overview of the project, including the background, goals, and objectives. It also identifies the target audience and stakeholders.
  2. Product Description: This section provides a detailed description of the product or feature being developed, including its functionality, user interface, and any technical requirements.
  3. User Requirements: This section outlines the specific needs and expectations of the target users, such as performance and usability requirements.
  4. Acceptance Criteria: This section describes the specific requirements that must be met for the product or feature to be considered complete and ready for release. This may include functional, performance, and usability requirements.
  5. Constraints: This section lists any constraints or limitations that will impact the development of the product or feature, such as budget, time, or technology limitations.
  6. Dependencies: This section outlines any dependencies or external factors that will impact the development of the product or feature, such as third-party software or hardware.
  7. Assumptions: This section lists any assumptions that have been made in the development of the product or feature, such as user behaviours or technical capabilities.
  8. Appendices: This section includes any additional information that supports the PRD, such as wireframes, mockups, or user research data.

It’s important to note that the components of a PRD may vary depending on the specific project and the organisation. However, the most important characteristic for a good PRD is that it is clear, concise, and provide enough information for the development team to understand the requirements and begin work on the product or feature

Closing Notes

As mentioned, your PRD might not have all the components listed above, or might have some additional sections, but it is perfectly fine if it fulfils it’s core objective – “Provide enough information for the development team to understand the requirements and begin work on the product or feature”. Now how would you rate my Mars colony PRD on this metric?

Is NPS a valid success metric for B2B products?

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When it comes to measuring the success of a B2B product, there’s no shortage of metrics that companies can use. One metric that’s often thrown around is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). But is NPS really a valid success metric for B2B products? In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at NPS and explore some alternative ways to measure the success of a B2B product.

What is NPS?

First, let’s define what NPS is. In a nutshell, NPS is a measure of customer satisfaction and loyalty. It’s calculated by asking customers a simple question: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this product to a friend or colleague?” Customers who respond with a 9 or 10 are considered “promoters,” those who respond with a 7 or 8 are considered “passives,” and those who respond with a 0-6 are considered “detractors.” The NPS is then calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.

On the surface, NPS seems like a great metric for measuring the success of a B2B product. After all, who wouldn’t want to know how likely their customers are to recommend their product to others? But when it comes to B2B products, there are a few problems with using NPS as a success metric.

Why it doesn’t work for B2B products?

One problem is that NPS is focused on customer satisfaction and loyalty, rather than on the actual performance of the product. In a B2B setting, the ultimate goal is usually to drive revenue and improve the bottom line, not just to make customers happy. NPS doesn’t necessarily give you a clear picture of how well your product is performing in terms of meeting the needs of your target market.

Another problem with NPS is that it’s based on a single question, which doesn’t always provide a lot of context. A customer might give your product a high score on the NPS question, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re using the product in the way it was intended or that the product is delivering the results they need.

What are some better metrics?

So if NPS isn’t the best metric for measuring the success of a B2B product, what are some alternatives? Here are a few metrics to consider:

  • Customer retention rate: This metric measures how well your product is retaining customers over time. A high retention rate is a good sign that your product is meeting the needs of your customers and that they’re getting value from it.
  • Revenue: This is probably the most straightforward and important metric for measuring the success of a B2B product. If your product is generating revenue, it’s likely that it’s meeting the needs of your target market.
  • ROI: This metric measures the return on investment for your product. It’s important to know if your product is generating enough revenue to cover its costs and provide a good return on investment.
  • Customer feedback: This is a more qualitative metric, but it can be very valuable. By gathering feedback from customers, you can get a better sense of how well your product is meeting their needs and what areas need improvement.
  • User engagement: This metric measures how much customers are using and interacting with your product. A high level of engagement is a good sign that your product is meeting the needs of your customers and that they’re finding value in it.

Closing Thoughts

In conclusion, NPS is not a valid success metric for B2B products. While it can be a useful metric for measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty, it doesn’t always provide a clear picture of how well a product is performing in terms of driving revenue and improving the bottom line. Instead, consider using metrics like customer retention rate, revenue, ROI, Customer feedback and user engagement.

5 Factors that Influence the Product Manager’s Role Across Companies

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If you are exploring a career in product management, or have recently started, I am sure you would be astonished to see the extent of variations across the roles on offer. If not, do a quick search on the term ‘product manager’ on any job site and browse through the first page of the search result before you read further.

I am sure you would find huge variations in the responsibilities and the required skills mentioned in the job descriptions – some companies are looking for experience using tools that you might not have even heard of, some would be asking for experience in a specific domain, while some would be really insistent on a scrum certification.  So how do you know where you’d be a good fit or how to envision your career path?

A critical step here would be to understand the reasons behind the vast variations in the role. While a lot of informative articles are available across multiple platforms covering the reasons for the same, I believe the following 5 factors covers the explanation more holistically:

  1. Core business of the company
  2. Size of the company
  3. Strategic focus of the company
  4. Position on the product life-cycle curve
  5. External or Internal Product

1. Core business of the company

The biggest factor deciding the role of a product manager is the end user of the product – is it a business or an individual customer? A lot of excellent resources are available that explain how a B2B product management role differs from a B2C one, so I am not going to repeat that here. You can read the following article for an in-depth coverage: The biggest difference between B2B and B2C product managers

However, I feel that B2B and B2C are too broad of a categorization which needs to be split further, specially if you are trying to understand the niches and plan your career around them. I would recommend thinking about the following segments (instead of just B2B vs B2C) when you plan your career path and would encourage you to talk to product managers in the segments which interest you for in-depth understanding of various roles.

1.1 Enterprise Product Companies (B2B)

Examples: Temenos, Oracle, SAP

  • These are the companies which built softwares for other businesses to solve key pain areas
  • Most of the older companies designed products for on-premise deployments. But recently, with the popularity of cloud and SaaS offerings there is an ongoing focus to be cloud ready. This is the reason that ‘cloud’ would be one of the common keywords in PM job postings by this segment of companies
  • Domain experience is highly desirable
  • As a product manager, you would need to constantly negotiate with customers/account managers in order to ensure that road-map/backlog doesn’t get tilted to satisfy only specific customers
  • You need to be good at articulating the value delivered by your product; because of the complex workflows having direct data on delivered value might be difficult
  • The PM might work on a single product/product module for years as the product maturity cycles are really long

1.2 SaaS Companies (B2B)

Examples: Hubspot, Postman

  • The products at these companies were built from the ground up to be cloud native
  • You’ll have a flood of feedback, ideas, inputs from your users
  • Switching cost for your customers is very low, so it becomes critical to keep an eye on the key metrics to identify the churn points and quickly take action
  • The road-map is relatively flexible for quick response to user demands
  • The product manager would need to work on defining and ‘maintaining’ the pricing model

1.3 Technology Services Company (B2B)

Examples: Accenture, TCS, DXC Technology

  • The identifying check is that you are going to work on a custom product for a specific customer
  • These companies used to work on waterfall model with a lot of emphasis on documentation and processes. While they have now adopted agile development, but the success metrics still revolve around delivering a scope within budget and timelines

1.4 Consumer Internet Companies (B2C)

Examples: Facebook, Uber, Netflix

  • These companies provide a service to the end user with internet at it’s core
  • Companies hiring in this segment put a lot of emphasis on prior ‘consumer internet’ experience
  • UX and UI are critical for the products and the product managers should expect to work closely with dedicated design teams

1.5 E-Commerce Companies (B2C and B2B)

Examples: Alibaba, Amazon, Flipkart

  • There are high chances that instead of being the custodian of a product, you would be the custodian of a group of metrics – cart abandonment rate, bounce rate, NPS, etc
  • You’ll work very closely with other product managers, category managers and business managers
  • Google Analytics/Mixpanel would be indispensable tools for you

1.6 Non-Tech Companies (B2B and B2C)

Examples: Maersk, DuPont, Bank of America

  • There are the companies where technology is not the core offering but still a critical aspect to achieve success in their business operations and value delivery to customers
  • Mostly larger companies take the decision to incubate in-house technology teams instead of repeatedly buying from technology vendors
  • A deep understanding of the offerings and business operations of the company would help the product manager in successfully delivering products
  • Key challenge for a PM would be to deal with competing priorities of the stakeholders

2. Size of the Company

The size of the company is going to heavily influence how the product manager’s role is defined and the product team is structured.

Small company Large Company
Responsibilities Greater responsibilities – including multiple products, research, validations, business strategy, etc Focused responsibilities – specific product or product area. You might be helped by business analysts, product owners, data analysts
Reporting Structure Directly work with an executives, CEO or the co-founders Product team hierarchy reporting to a Chief Product Officer, who might report to the CTO/COO/CEO depending on the importance of technology products to the company’s core business
Metrics Focus on both user as well as business metrics You would be required to focus on specific set of metrics – either on the revenue or user side. The business metrics are usually entrusted to more senior PMs in the product hierarchy
Road-map Shorter term, agile road-map with focus to quickly adopt to changing market and business conditions Longer term, need to balance between a lot of competing priorities across different stakeholders, balance trade-off between existing and new users

3. Strategic Priorities of the Company

It is possible to find two companies with similar products, customer segments & problem areas to have huge differences in the way a product manager’s role is defined. There can be huge differences in the product team size, control over engineering bandwidth, autonomy and success metrics.

This is because the companies might have opted to choose two different strategic priorities: sales-first vs product-first.

The sales driven company would put meeting revenue targets foremost while the product driven company puts more importance on product excellence.

If you are interested to read more about the revenue-led vs a product-led strategy, I would recommend the following article: Product-Led vs. Revenue-Driven

4. Position on the Product Life-cycle Curve

Irrespective of the size and core business of the the company, a product manager’s priorities and goals are heavily influenced by the current stage of the product on the product life-cycle curve.

Image of the Product Life Cycle

Introduction: The goal at this stage is to achieve the product-market fit as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Developing a good understanding of the industry and preferably some prior experience of working with the potential customer segment would be an excellent starting point as a product manager at this stage.

Growth: If you see the words ‘growth hacker’ on the job description, then it is a strong indicator that the product is at the growth stage. It’s expected to see many new competitors trying to replicate your success. Here the focus would be to stay ahead of the competition while meeting the demands of the current customers.

Maturity: Focus is on maintaining the market share, keeping the customer churn in check while being on the look-out for any changing market or customer demands.

Decline: Personally, I think it is one of the most challenging role to pick up as a product manager. You need to be able to come up with the best possible outcome while managing the stakeholder expectations. You need to work out what needs to be phased out, come up with next investment options and identify any potential pivots.

5. External vs Internal Product

Within each company, there are going to be products which are exposed to paying customers and products which are build for internal users. For instance, a company might develop a demo platform to help their sales teams deliver impact-full customer demonstrations.

There are both advantages & challenges of working on an internal product. The primary advantage is that the users are much more accessible and you can directly see the impact of your product around you. On the flip side, your product’s success is not necessarily linked to only the KPIs as internal politics might also play a role.

If you would like to read more about internal product management, you can read it here: Internal Product Management: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Conclusion

If after reading this, you are even more confused about how to make sense of various product management roles, it’s absolutely fine. The purpose of this article was to equip you with the dimensions that’ll help you better understand and communicate while charting out your product management career. All the best for your PM career journey!

Flip-It! An elegant idea generation exercise

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If you are reading this, there are high chances that you either work or aspire to work in a field that requires constant innovation and love working with new ideas. I am in the same boat as you. Both of us would relate to that euphoric moment when an idea just pops into our head and saves the day. Be it working on products, coming up with blog ideas, solving a real life problem – creative ideas just make the life easier.

But more often than not, there are times when new ideas are just hard to come by, especially when there’s a deadline associated with it. The same thoughts keep on presenting themselves dressed in different ways and we need some inspiration to break the cycle.

Through this blog, I wanted to share a simple, elegant yet powerful way to induce lateral thinking and break the creative block – Flip-It!

How it Works

Think of an obvious concept or fact related to the area you are trying to find inspiration in and write it down. Now try to think what something opposite of that would look like. That’s it!

If I break the process into three simple steps, they would be:

Step 1: Ask an obvious question related to the problem area/existing way of doing things

Step 2: Think of what would the opposite of the answer to above question would look like

Step 3: Think of solutions that will render the above flipped answer sensible

Don’t worry, if you don’t get it from the above explanation. Just go through the examples given ahead and you’ll understand how easy it is.

Disclaimer: There’s no guarantee that you’ll find the solution to your problem at the first go, but it’s definitely bound to force you to think laterally and consolidate your thoughts in the form of sometimes hilarious and sometimes brilliant ideas. Whatever be the outcome, if you are like me, the fun of thinking is worth it.

Example #1: Flipping an alarm clock

Looking around while writing this blog, I saw the alarm clock on my desk. What new ideas can we generate if use Flip-It! on an alarm clock. Let’s ask the questions.

Step 1: Ask an obvious question

What does an alarm clock do? It helps people wake up at a specified time.

Step 2: Think of what would be the opposite of above answer

What’s the opposite of waking up? Going to sleep

Step 3: Think of solutions that will provide sense to above answer

Can there be something that helps people go to sleep. Can I achieve that with an alarm clock? Maybe I can add soothing lights and music features to the alarm clock. Whoa! A new product idea. A sleep management device that helps me sleep on time, wake up on time and maintain a healthy sleeping cycle.

Example #2: Flipping a hand dryer

Flip-It on Hand DryerSuppose you are a product manager working with Dyson and you need to think of a product line extension for your Airblade hand dryers. Let’s see what ideas can we come up with Flip-It!

Step 1: Ask an obvious question

What does a hand dryer do? It dries up the users hands

Step 2: Think of what would be the opposite of above answer

What’s the opposite of drying up hands? Make the hands wet

Step 3: Think of solutions that will provide sense to above answer

Why would the users be interested in making their hands wet? Maybe if we add a water spray in addition to the air nozzle… Whoa! I can also add a foam spray. What if there was a product where I just put my hands and it comes out washed and dried. Nice, let’s create an all-in-one hand sanitation device.

Example #3: Flipping a food delivery app

Now, pick up any app on your phone and put it through this exercise and see if we can come up with a new app idea. I am picking up Zomato, a popular restaurant discovery and food delivery app.

Step 1: Ask an obvious question

What does Zomato do? Basically, it helps me get food delivered to my home.

Step 2: Think of what would be the opposite of above answer

What can be the opposite of getting food delivered at my doorstep? Maybe something that takes away food from my home.

Step 3: Think of solutions that will provide sense to above answer

In what situations would I want someone to show up and take away food from me? Maybe it can be done to give away leftover or fresh food parcels for charity, which many people already do occasionally. If an easier way is made available, they might do it even more often. Idea! Food delivery services can add a feature for users where any delivery boy while delivering food would also pick up any leftover food and drop it off at a designated zone where anyone in need can pick up the food.

Note: Notice how the end result after using Flip-It! exercise is not a competing or opposite product, but rather an extension to the existing product capabilities.

Closing Comments

I know that the examples that I have picked up are quite product centric (maybe because that’s what I do professionally), but I apply this exercise across a lot of situations. What to gift to my wife? What information to include on my resume? What’s the meaning of life! Sometimes I get really good answers, sometimes a good laugh. But there’s no doubt that the exercise forces you to think laterally and build your creative muscles. So go on, give it a try.

I would really appreciate if you could share some examples of how you applied it in a real life situation. Alternatively, you can suggest me some problems and I’ll be happy to share how I would apply the steps to come up with new ideas. Happy Thinking!