Product Requirement Documents: The Key to Delivering Data Solutions

It’s not a surprise that some of the most adapted products were developed through successful design with the intention of providing value for the end user. Often, product development loses sight of who will be using it, how it will be used, and what it will be used for. A Product Requirements Document (PRD) is a document that serves to define those parameters.

Oftentimes, teams get sidetracked in adding bells and whistles to products that provide little to no additional value. This is where the PRD plays a crucial role. A successful PRD houses all of the requirements, features, and use cases necessary for the end user to solve their business problem. Staying true to this document will give any organization their best chance at adding value to a business through usage and satisfaction. Apple is a prime example of this. As Steve Jobs noted, “you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to sell it.”

Jobs showed this through Apple’s release of the iPod. When the iPod was first released in 2001, there were several other MP3 players out on the market, eliminating first mover advantage for the iPod. What helped was its design and cx. It was entirely designed with the customer in mind. Apple understood the frustrations customers had with other products on the market: small storage space, bulky and heavy, etc… They took this information and worked backwards to deliver an easy-to-use product that solved these issues.

How can this lesson be applied to data platforms? Business data solutions should be approached with the same process as Apple. Talk to your stakeholders. Understand what they need, what they have, and what can be improved based on this initial assessment. What is their current state of operation? What are the biggest pain points? Understanding this and capturing the feedback in a PRD is essential. When possible, go directly to the users that will be leveraging your product and find out what will help them succeed by providing a value to them directly. These are the end users you want to build for.

After these initial conversations, begin constructing the PRD. A successful PRD details requirements for a product release and includes the following sections:

• Purpose – What is the purpose of this product and why is the organization interested in creating it?
• Features and Requirements – This section includes features for users, requirements for building the product, and features purposely left out from production.
• User Personas – Who will the users of the final product be? Are they all using it for the same reason, or do they all have differing backgrounds and desires?
• Designs – This can include sketches of the technical architecture or user experience, but should provide visuals of how the product works.
• Potential Risks – What issues could the team encounter during production?
• Q&A – A great place to keep track of frequently asked questions and note key decisions made throughout development.

With the sections of a PRD laid out, we can move to a simple, classic data product as an example: a visual dashboard. We routinely encounter this example at Softcrylic in our efforts to assist clients with KPI monitoring.

At Softcrylic, we’ve helped several clients achieve success in numerous data-based initiatives, oftentimes leveraging a PRD to ensure relevancy and value in the final delivery. This includes:

• Development of visual dashboards for analysts to delivery powerful insights to non-technical stake holders
• Implementation of data solutions such as Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) to develop a consolidated view of an audience across channels
• Building an audience segmentation strategy with ongoing measurement solutions, leveraging multi-channel data to identify the best communication tactic with various audience groups, at the right time

It is imperative to spend time with end users to get as much clarity in your PRD as possible. A PRD is as helpful for projects as small as our Revenue KPI dashboard as it is for more colossal efforts like data migration. This should be the North star through the entire data development process, with all teams aligned to it. However, this document is a guidepost and is meant to be flexible as new findings are surfaced through data discovery, UAT etc. At Softcrylic, we will work with your team hand in hand through any project, using the PRD consistently to ensure the final product offers the value it was intended to deliver on.