3 Most Common Mistakes in Product Requirements Documents (PRDs)

Spoiler: we will talk about clarity, cross-team impact and measures of success.

As a product manager, I've seen my fair share of PRDs. I've written tons of them, reviewed hundreds more, and even helped create the PRD template we used at Vimeo. Through all this experience, I've learned that sticking to a specific template isn't as crucial as nailing the core content. So, let's dive into the three most common mistakes I see product managers make when writing PRDs.

1. No Clear Articulation of the User Problem

This is the big one. It's amazing how many PRDs I've seen that jump straight into solutions without clearly stating the problem they're trying to solve. Remember, your PRD should start with a clear, concise statement of the user problem you're addressing. This sets the stage for everything that follows and helps ensure your solution is actually solving a real need. It provides alignment among stakeholders and the team, paves the way for solution evaluation and helps avoid bias.
If you are guided by a solution, not the problem – it is possible your priorities are off and you might be missing an opportunity to bring real value to the users ! 

2. Missing Key Requirements Related to Stakeholder-Owned Areas

Most PRDs I've read focus heavily on describing the solution from a traditional product development perspective. But here's the thing: your product doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's crucial to consider how your proposed changes might impact other departments or systems.

For example, if you're tweaking how pricing plans are displayed, you need to make sure the finance team can account for these changes and the transactions team can calculate them correctly. In this example the connection is obvious, but often it is not. 

Another example: a side effect of consolidating multiple page menus into one was the change in the deep linking experience for those menus. Links were used in email notifications that were sent to a user. Thinking about the dependencies with notifications, it was easy to identify that work will need to get done to avoid broken links. 

Pro tip: Include a list of potential dependencies in your PRD template. This forces you to pause and think about possible ripple effects across the organization. Trust me, your colleagues in other departments will thank you for it. 

3. Lack of Clarity on How to Measure Success

In 2017 I attended Julie Zhou's presentation at the Women In Product conference where she mentioned how they were thinking about measuring success at Facebook. She simply asked: "How do we know if we solved the problem?" Her talk really stuck with me over the years. The question forces us to think about our expectations and how we'll actually measure success and what specific metrics we need to monitor. Too often, I see this section of the PRD either skipped entirely or moved to the data analysis team.
As product managers, we should be accountable for defining and instrumenting ways to measure success.
Here's a little exercise I recommend: imagine you've just finished the project you're writing about. How would the graphs on your existing metrics dashboard change? (And if you don't have such a dashboard, maybe that should be your next priority!). 

The Bottom Line

PRDs will always evolve – their templates, structure, and content. But regardless of how they change, one thing remains constant: anyone, regardless of their tech savviness, should be able to read your PRD and understand what customer problem you're trying to solve and how you're approaching it.
So, focus on clarity above all else. Your team, stakeholders, and future self will thank you for it!

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Yana’s 2 cents:

This post is an excellent reminder that at the core of any successful product is a clear understanding of the user’s problem, a commitment to cross-team collaboration, and defined success metrics that are tied back to user impact. In my mentor sessions, I frequently meet aspiring product creators who are eager to build "the next big thing"—a million-dollar business—yet they often struggle to answer a fundamental question: "What is the user problem you're solving, and why should users choose your solution over the many others out there?"

If there’s one thing I could add, I’d say: Don’t forget to keep the PRD up to date. Product managers often forget that PRDs are living documents. It’s valuable to revisit the PRD at key project milestones to ensure the defined problem and metrics still align with the team’s learnings as the project evolves. This not only reinforces alignment but also prevents scope creep from derailing success criteria.