How to Prepare a Product Specification?
Product managers in a consumer goods world work with different documents throughout products’ lifecycle. Have you ever written product briefs, sales performances, specifications, quality tests or smart roadmaps?
Product specification is one of the main PM documents. This detailed approach requires the perfect control of product file management.
Product Specification definition
A product specification is a strategic document with requirements aimed to provide product teams with the data they need to develop new product features. It is also known as Product Specs.
An effective product specification gives team members relevant context about business needs, potential customers/ users, and other useful criteria that help them make right decisions as they design solutions.
Product managers will agree that a well-written specification should contain clarity and transparency. The more information you add to your spec, the more clarity you’ll give the team working on the product.
What does product specification include?
Product specs should not be too long or extremely technical. Briefness is the key to successful and effective product specs.
You will be satisfied with your spec if it answers the following questions:
- What do we create?
- Why do we create that and what for?
- What should be achieved in the final?
- How can we measure results?
Building a product specification can be started from the moment you have an initial idea and then can be proceeding until you push it over to development.
A product specification consists of:
- Summary – the main idea that your product suggests.
- Relevant user stories.
- User personas – the common portrait of your potential customers who is the solution for.
- Business cases demonstrated the value that this may create for the business and potential clients.
- Design solution.
- Functional specification – the technical details of the solution.
How to write a product specification?
- Define the sources of problems.
- Use customers’ feedback.
- Determine and evaluate requirements.
- Break a specific problem down into hypotheses.
- Add the pages/screens with all the features if needed.
- Arrange discussions across your team if needed.
- Add user testing with your closest customers.
- Simplify the document.
- Send the spec to development.
Product specification and Hygger
Hygger.io product management platform will assist you to draft product ideas into complete product specs. Use a smart Roadmap for systemizing all your initiatives and ideas and Backlog Priority Chart for managing the product backlog and defining the most urgent important tasks.
Try Hygger free today.
You may also explore the short and fun video that anyone can use to write requirement and specification documents:
