The Ultimate Guide To Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) | 10x Winning PRD templates

Jump straight to PRD templates from Hustle Badger, Figma, Lenny, Asana, Intercom, Product Hunt, Amazon and more

---

What is a Product Requirements Document or PRD?

A Product Requirements Document (PRD) acts as the single source of truth to align a development team and their stakeholders on a feature the team is building. A PRD is therefore one of the most critical resources in product management. It describes why you are building the feature, how you are planning on building it, and the release and testing plans for it. Having a clear PRD is important to make sure the team has a point of reference for what they are building, and is a useful tool for keeping stakeholders in the loop about progress.

In this article we’ve pulled together our own simple PRD template together with 10 of the best example PRDs from across the internet. This includes templates from product leaders at Square and Asana, examples from companies such as Intercom, and even a webinar where a Senior PM at Amazon walks you through winning PRDs, including example templates from Amazon.

Get the Hustle Badger PRD template here: Google Doc | Notion | Word

How to write a PRD?

In product management a PRD should mirror your development process, and the sections of your PRD should map to product reviews as a feature moves through discovery and into delivery. Whilst owned by the Product Manager, everyone on the team should contribute to them where relevant (e.g. designer adding user research insights, wireframes and prototypes). The PRD is therefore written as the team works on the feature, documenting insights and decisions as the team progresses. See below for how PRD creation maps to development processes and product review cycles.

As with all our guides, we will outline a solid format you can use off-the-shelf here, but it will be most effective if you use this as a starting point and co-create this with your team to suit your own specific needs. The below example is appropriate for a mid-sized tech company, but a start up with a single team would obviously want something much lighter weight. We’ve linked to more example PRDs at the end of this article.

Get the Hustle Badger PRD template here: Google Doc | Notion | Word

Writing a Product Requirements Document: Contents

PRDs typically have three main sections, which align to the main phases of product development, as well as an intro with useful information:

1. Intro – a summary of the feature and who is working on it
2. Problem definition – what is the problem we are trying to solve, and why is this important
3. Solution definition – what does the proposed solution look like, and what are the insights that led us to this solution
4. Launch readiness – what is the go-to-market plan for testing and releasing this feature, including cross-functional dependencies

Intro

This is a quick reference containing useful information for anyone who might want to know more.

Title	What is the name we’re using to refer to this feature.
Team	Which team is working on this.
Owner	Who is the PM who owns the PRD and is the first point of contact for stakeholders.
Summary	A one line summary of what this feature is, or the problem we’re looking to solve.
Status	Where is this in discovery and development.
Next milestone	The next major date we’re working towards (e.g. a product review or release date).

Problem definition

It’s critical for teams and stakeholders to understand why we are building a feature – both the user need that we are trying to solve, and the business value in solving this problem.

Objective	What we are trying to achieve with this feature. Which company goals it relates to.
Success metric	The metric that we will use to measure whether the feature has been successful.
Stakeholders	Who needs to be kept up to date on the progress of this feature, or should be giving input on it. Doing a RACI table can be very helpful here.
Context	This is the core of this section, detailing why this is important to work on, from both a user and business perspective. It likely links to other strategy documents and existing insights the team has.
Scope & constraints	Notes on what is in and out of scope, as well as any constraints that the team should bear in mind, such as a limit to the time or investment that can be made, or impact on other teams.
Risks	The key risks that the team has identified and is working to reduce.

Solution definition

This section outlines what the team is planning to build to solve the stated problem.

User flows	Diagrams showing the states and screens that the user can move between.
Designs	Wireframes, mockups and prototypes as they are developed, showing what the feature will look like, and how users will interact with it.
User research	Insights from user testing and key stakeholders on how well the solution solves the problem.
Analysis	Quantitative insights that guide the development of this feature.
Competitor references	References from competitors and other products that are useful for the development of this feature.
Decision log	Decisions that have been made in the past about the scope and nature of the feature. This is most helpful if it includes the decision maker, date, and brief reasoning, as well as the decision taken. This could also include open questions that still need to be resolved, as well as the process for answering them.

Launch readiness

This section outlines the release and testing plans for the solution. It should contain details of the work necessary to assess whether the solution is effective, and the internal preparation (often cross functional) to ensure the release is a success.

Testing plan	Details of how you are planning to test the solution. This might include stages such as an internal release, external beta, staged roll-out or AB testing.
Tracking & analytics	Details of the tracking in place, and dashboards or reports that are needed to assess the performance of the solution.
Marketing plan	The details of how the solution will be marketed to users. It’s useful here to think through the message and channels for different user groups, as well as who is responsible for pulling together and triggering these comms.
Customer service plan	This might be a simple to-do noting whether or not the customer service team has been briefed (e.g. a workshop or team meeting), and could include the materials they will need to support the solution once it is live.
Legal checks	This should ensure that any legal implications of launching (e.g. updating T&Cs, partner contracts) are dealt with before the feature goes live.
FAQs	It’s useful to answer anticipated questions from both stakeholders and external users ahead of the feature going live. In some situations, this might include updating your public FAQs or support documents.
Timeline	This should give an overview of upcoming dates and milestones, and confirmation of where the team is in roll out, especially if things have been delayed.

Impact

This section documents what the team learned when the feature went live. Product teams exist to create outcomes, not outputs, so it’s critical that they don’t have a “fire and forget” mindset to releasing features. They should care deeply about the impact the release generates, and use these insights to guide future development.

Success	How much the release moved its success metrics. How much it contributed to the team’s objective.
Quantitative analysis	Any insights we can see in terms of how much users engaged with this feature, or other behaviour. Whether there are any second order effects to the release.
Qualitative feedback	What feedback we saw from users both direct to customer service, and indirectly via forums, social media and so on.
Next steps	Any follow up actions arising from the release. Whether AB tests will be rolled out or rolled back. Further phases of developing this solution.

PRD templates

• Hustle Badger PRD template | [Google Doc | Notion | Word]

10x PRD Examples

Here are some of the best PRD templates and examples we’ve curated from across the internet.

• Figma’s PRD template | [Coda]
  A clean and comprehensive example to start with.
• Lenny Rachitsky’s PRD template | [Google Doc]
  A super simple template to get you started on any project from the podcaster and ex Airbnb product leader.
• Kevin Yien’s (Square) PRD template | [Google Doc]
  Kevin has a fairly detailed template here with some great guidance on how to fill it out and set yourself up for success.
• Asana’s project brief template | [Google Doc]
  Asana have a great PRD template here that has a solid problem statement framework.
• Intercom’s story template | [PDF]
  Keep it simple with Intercom’s template – everything you need and nothing else.
• Product Hunt’s PRD template | [Google Doc]
  At the other end of the spectrum, Product Hunt have a very comprehensive PRD template with sections for go-to-market plans, technical architecture and mockups
• Adam Waxman’s (SeatGeek) PRD template | [Google Docs]
  Great PRD example here with a 1 page summary before getting into the details
• Steve Morin’s (Asana) 1-pager template | [Google Docs]
  Another great PRD template with a focus on risks, mitigations and open questions
• Adam Thomas’ initiative template | [Google Docs]
  This template focuses on brevity, with a timely reminder to keep PRDs to a single page if at all possible
• How to Write Great Product Requirements by Amazon Sr PM, Elly Newell | [Webinar, YouTube] A webinar, with how tos and some example Amazon PRD templates

FAQs