Product requirements document

A product requirements document (PRD) is used in the technology industry to plan and execute new products. A PRD is often created after a marketing requirements document (MRD) has been written and been given approval by management. Sometimes the PRD will have significant overlap with the MRD for a given project.

Typical components of a product requirements document are:

Purpose and scope (project management), from both a technical and business perspective

Stakeholder identification

Market assessment and target demographics

Product overview and use cases

Feature set

Constraints

Requirements, including

functional requirements

Usability requirements

technical requirements (e.g. security, network, platform, integration, client)

environmental requirements

support requirements

billing requirements

Workflow plans, timelines and milestones

Evaluation plan and performance metrics

There are obviously many variations in this type of document, and they often vary based on the type of product and size of the company. If there is no marketing requirements document in place, a product requirements document can be thought of as a business and operations plan for a product. If the marketing document exists, the product document focuses more on the technical aspects of the product and the execution of building it.