Don’t Make this Common Customer Validation Mistake
Your audience says they're interested, but will they act? Learn practical customer validation techniques to test your value proposition and gain meaningful commitment.
The Only PRD Template You'll Ever Need
Stop writing confusing PRDs. Use our step-by-step guide and comprehensive PRD template to align your team, define user stories, and build successful products.
This is part of a series on problem solving for high-impact innovations
More on Goals and Metrics
More on Problem Definition
More on Solution Definition
Have you ever finished a sprint, excited for a new feature, only to realize it’s not what you expected? The engineering team delivered, but it still missed the mark. Weeks of effort feel wasted, and frustration builds.
This isn’t just a small communication gap. Without one clear source of truth, teams run into scope creep, engineers work without full context, and decisions get lost in endless chat threads. Good ideas slip through the cracks, and projects stall.
This guide fixes that. Instead of a blank template, we’ll walk you through a proven PRD for an “AI Email Summarizer,” with simple notes in each section to explain the why behind it.
It’s more than a document. It’s a living tool for alignment that helps teams build the right thing, the right way, the first time. How? By sparking ideas and kickstarting the right conversations. The goal is simple: clear understanding that guides smart design and technical choices.
Â
Key Takeaways
- A great spec is a narrative that tells the story of the user's problem and your solution.
- It is a collaborative contract, with clear ownership defined for Product, Engineering, and UX.
- It must be de-risked, explicitly identifying and validating the most critical assumptions.
Each section includes an 👉 "Author's Notes" callout explaining the strategic thinking behind it. This isn’t just a template—it’s a guided walkthrough.
Â
PRD Template: The Annotated Walkthrough
Â
AI-Powered Email Summarizer PRD
Â
Team: Workspace
Name | Role |
ㅤ | Contributors • Engineering Lead • Design Lead • Product Manager |
ㅤ | Sponsor • VP Customer Success |
- Status: [Draft / Approved / Launched]
- Shipping: [Date]
- Last Updated: [Date]
Â
Author's Notes - Why This Comes First
The "Contributors & Status" block is more than just a formality; it sets the context and immediately identifies who owns the project.
- By naming key leads from Engineering, Design, Product, and Business, it reinforces a sense of team effort and clearly communicates that everyone is aligned and accountable.
- Additionally, it provides a quick snapshot of the project’s current status and target shipping date, making it easy for busy executives and cross-departmental teammates to stay informed.
- This block also signals that the document is actively maintained, assuring readers that it’s a reliable, up-to-date source.
The Opportunity
Problem: Our core user persona is Alex, a busy IT project manager at a fast-growing tech company. Alex’s main job is keeping fast-paced and important projects on track, which means managing dozens of high-volume email threads daily.
- Example: When a long email thread about a critical decision hits Alex’s inbox, she has to stop and spend 10-15 minutes reading it all to find key action items. This is slow, inefficient, and makes it easy to miss important details (which she has repeatedly) buried deep in the conversation.
- Impact: This friction slows the team down, lowers productivity, and adds burnout. It leaves Alex and her team unsure if they have all the info, making it harder for their fast-growing company to keep up with demand.
Solution: Our AI-powered "Summarizer” creates a clear, bulleted summary of an entire email thread with one click, helping users save time and drive their projects forward confidently.
- Future: Let’s say Alex gets her hands on this Summarizer. She opens a 50-reply email thread, feels overwhelmed, and clicks 'Summarize.' In 3 seconds, she gets a simple 4-bullet summary, quickly spotting her key action item. She copies it to her to-do list and confidently archives the email—all in under a minute.
- Validation: A rough ChatGPT-based prototype tested with 10 target users showed an 80% average time reduction reading 20 long emails. Nine out of 10 said it would "significantly improve" their daily workflow and signed up for the waitlist.
- Organization Benefits. This will lower user churn and reduce support requests by making information easier to find. It supports our main goal of working more efficiently while handling higher costs, saving around $50,000 worth of human hours a year.
Â
Author's Notes - Don’t Miss a Big Opportunity Here
This section is a great chance to tell a story.
- Instead of listing features, it begins with a real person, Alex, facing a real problem, which builds empathy and gives important context.
- The Validation backs up the solution with clear numbers—a 80% time reduction—showing it’s worth building.
- Lastly, the Benefits clearly connect user value to business value, making the case strong and straightforward.
The Goal
Core Job: As a busy project manager, when I get a long, complex email thread, I want to quickly summarize and copy the main outcomes—decisions and action items—so I can manage my inbox and move forward with next steps faster and more confidently.
Top “North Star” metric: Cut time spent on long emails by 15% for feature users.
- Key Leading indicators:
- 40% adoption rate with active users using it at least once a week.
- 90%+ positive in-app feedback (đź‘Ť| đź‘Ž) to confirm users are satisfied with the summary quality and format.
- Anti Goal / Guardrail metric:
- The median cost per summary must not exceed $0.005.
Â
Author's Notes - Let’s Break Down "The Goal"
Core Job
- Purpose: This section turns a big business goal into clear, measurable, user-focused outcomes. It starts with the main task the user wants to accomplish, called an Epic, which is a big piece of work that typically takes several development cycles.
- Format: I suggest writing the Epic from the user's view, like: "As a user, I want to... so I can...," keeping the focus on real needs.
- What’s Next: This leads to a Functional Requirements table where the Epic breaks into smaller, doable “user stories,” connecting strategy to actual work.
Success Criteria
- Top North Star metric:Â Choosing one key success measure, like 'Cut time spent,' that shows the user's most valuable moment helps the team stay focused.
- Key Leading Indicators: These are early signs we’re heading in the right direction, like "Adoption rate" and "positive feedback" leading to "reduced churn."
- Anti Goal / Guardrail metric: A metric to prevent problems or rule out risky or misaligned solutions, like tracking "median cost" so we don’t solve user needs in an unsustainable way.
Â
The Functional Requirements
User Story & Flow | Acceptance Criteria & UX | Scores & Secondary Impacts |
PM SUM-01: As a busy project manager, when I get a long email, I click the 'Summarize' button and get a notification letting me know my summary is on the way. | PM • Given an email with >100 words, When the user clicks "Summarize," Then the button enters a "Loading" state and the AI interaction begins. Eng • The UI must handle all states (Loading, Empty, Error) as defined in the "State Design" table (see Tech/Design Plan linked below). UX [Link to Design Mockup] • The Summarize button must be clearly visible in the action toolbar and display key button and common application states (loading, error, empty, etc). • The mockup must also include all user-facing copy. | Scores • (PM) Goal: 4: (Supports core value prop) • (Eng) Lightweight: 3: (New third party LLM API, proxied through a secure new Cloud Function) • (Eng) Certainty: 3: (API reliability is a risk) Major Risks • (Eng) The API is reliable. Validation: This story includes an early technical spike to confirm the API connection. • (PM) Users will trust the output. Validation: We will monitor the in-app feedback (👍| 👎) to see if users are satisfied with the summary quality and format. Secondary Impacts • (Both) Existing Impacted Features: Email Reading Panel (Enhanced). • (Both) Analytics: Key events (summarize_clicked, summary_failed, copy_clicked) should be logged to help us assess the value of this feature. • (Both) Out of scope: Summarizing file attachments because it introduces technical complexity, harming our score for Lightweight. |
Toggle for other potential user stories for this feature
User Story & Flow | Acceptance Criteria & UX | Scores & Secondary Impacts |
SUM-02: As a busy project manager, after initiating a summary, I want to view the generated text in a clear format, so I can quickly understand the key points. | PM Given the AI has successfully returned a summary, When the UI updates, Then the summary is displayed above the email body. • The summary text must be presented as no more than 3-5 bullet points in a professional and objective tone, with with each bullet point representing a key decision or action item. Eng • The user must receive the summary in under 5 seconds (P95) to ensure a responsive experience. • Must handle 1,000 concurrent requests without performance degradation • 99.9% uptime, with a graceful error state for API outages • The model's output must achieve a 4/5 or higher on our human evaluation accuracy test during QA. • No model should use the data sent to train its model using a "zero data retention" API option. UX [Link to Design Mockup] • The AISummary box must be visually distinct from the email body (e.g., using a different background color and a border). • It must have a clear, permanent title: "AI-Generated Summary." • The AISummary box must have a maximum height and become scrollable if the content overflows. • New UI components must be WCAG 2.1 AA compliant. • The component must include a "Copy" icon button. • The component must be built to handle a variable number of bullet points gracefully. | Scores • Goal: 5 (Displaying the summary is the culmination of the core user value.) • Size: 5 (This is a straightforward UI component with no new APIs • Certainty: 5 (This is a very low-risk, well-understood implementation.) Secondary Impacts • Existing Impacted Features: Email View (Requires a new, designated UI area to render this component).  • Out of Scope: Allowing users to edit the summary; storing the summary in the database. |
SUM-03: As a busy project manager, after generating a summary, I want to copy the text so I can ensure clarity in my own notes. | PM Given a summary is displayed, When the user clicks the "Copy" icon, Then the text is copied to their clipboard. UX [Link to Figma - Main Flow]. | Scores • Goal: 4: (A key utility) • Size: 5: (Simple JS action; no new data collections are required) • Certainty: 5: (No dependencies like an API) Major Risks • Users find copying useful. Validation: We will track the click rate on the "Copy" button to validate the utility of the generated text. Secondary Impacts • Out of Scope: Automatically saving summaries because it would require significant data and architectural changes, harming our tech feasibility score. |
Â
Author’s Notes - The Heart of the PRD
This is a strategic plan guiding our new feature. Every column has a clear role:
User Story: Each row begins with a real, action-focused User Story describing the user persona, their key action, and their goal.
- Format: “As a [user persona], I [key action], so that [benefit or goal].
- Chunk: We break features into smaller parts. For example, the first story covers starting the action and testing the most complex bit (the API call) before moving to showing and interacting with results.
Acceptance Criteria & UX: This defines what “done” means using clear, testable steps.
- Format: It uses the "Given-When-Then" format to create a testable condition, leaving little room for misinterpretation.
- Team effort: Product managers set goals, engineers add technical details, and UX adds mockups. Everyone’s input keeps the spec strong. But don’t get trapped in your lane. Ask questions or add to each other's sections. For example, PMs should flag any technical risks or design limits they know about from experience.
- Guides Next Steps: It helps developers build what’s expected and lets testers create test plans to verify the app works right. This is also an essential “single source of truth” that helps all teammates get up to speed quickly to understand what is in the app and what should be happening, even if they weren’t involved in building it.
Scores & Impacts: This explains why we made our decisions.
Three criteria help the team align on the top user stories and acceptance criteria that achieve the user’s goal.
- Goal: How much does this feature help users reach their goal? This keeps us focused on what’s most valuable.
- Lightweight:Â How much work would this need? This helps plan resources and timelines.
- Certainty: How confident are we that we’ll get this right on the first try? Spotting risks and unknowns early helps avoid delays.
💡 Process Tip: Don’t stop at your first idea. Strong PMs “explore the solution space” — by brainstorming and prioritizing several ways to help users reach their goals. They then collaborate with the team to pick the best approach for the first version using criteria like the three described above (goal, lightweight, and certainty).
Â
Major Risks: Highlights the top risks and how we’ll test to manage them.
- For example, the first story includes a Technical Spike—an early research task to reduce uncertainty early, instead of being caught surprised right before the launch.
Secondary Impacts: Shows how new features affect the overall product for a smooth user experience.
- The inclusion of an analytics item transforms our success criteria from hopeful goals into measurable outcomes. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.
- Out of Scope: Clarifies limits to avoid confusion and keep the project on track.
💡 Process Tip: Make this spec a Single Source of Truth
- This table is the go-to reference for the feature—everything about it is here. Whenever a requirement changes, update this table. Don’t treat it like a “write and forget” file.
- Critical engineering task and design items, like mockups, should link back to this document. That way, anyone new can quickly get the full picture.
High Level Next Steps
- Link to the Project Tracker (e.g., Jira Board)
- Link to the Tech/Design Plan
Â
Author’s Notes - How to Spark Action
Your goal is a smooth handoff: link to live plan where the work happens. This helps stakeholders find details without cluttering this doc.
The live plan will typically mirror the iterative phases below for each sprint (a fixed work period), though these phases often overlap and evolve:
Phase 1: Design (Complete 1+ week before the feature’s sprint starts)
The Product Manager (PM) works with key people—like customer-facing teams, feature sponsors, and engineers—to create and align on the PRD Template.
- They brainstorm and prioritize several ways to help users reach their goals, then collaborate with the team to pick the best approach for the first version using criteria like the three described above (Goal, Lightweight, and Certainty).
- The PM also leads ongoing backlog refinement sessions to keep upcoming work clear and ready for development sprints.
- The Engineering Lead collaborates with the team to build a tech plan covering architecture, components, data models, integrations, and any research to reduce risks. They help break down tasks into tickets in the project tool (like Jira) to prepare for sprint planning.
- The Design Lead iterates on designs or prototypes with input from the PM and engineers, linking them to the right user stories.
The Product Marketing Lead (or Product Manager) builds a launch plan
- This includes target users/plans, phased rollout strategy (such as pilot, closed beta, invite-only, general availability, exit criteria for each phase, and the use of things like feature flags to turn features on/off in phases), key messaging, and marketing tactics (eg: in-app modals, blog posts, newsletters, and demo videos sent to stakeholders).
- 💡 Tip: Think ahead about anything you’ll need from other teams, like updates to sales materials, analytics dashboards, security policies, shared metrics, websites, or training docs. Reach out early to avoid hold-ups at launch.
Phase 2: Development & QA (Complete by sprint end or launch date)
- The Engineering Lead runs “sprint planning” meetings to help developers estimate effort and assign tickets. They track progress to keep things on schedule and help anyone stuck. Product joins meetings like daily standups to answer questions and support the team.
- The QA Lead (or Engineering Lead) writes and runs tests based on requirements and helps ensure a reliable feature, including final review by PM or sponsor. Testing is continuous as soon as development is done to prevent work spikes that delay launches.
Phase 3: Launch & Post-Launch
- The Engineering Lead runs a staged rollout, watches for bugs, and fixes issues quickly to keep things stable. The engineering team logs and reviews major bugs and plans how to avoid them next time.
- The Product Manager tracks success and user feedback to shape the next version and may lead a retrospective reflection with the team to improve future cycles.
Appendix
Changelog
DATE | DESCRIPTION | Who |
8/21 | Added REQ-SUM-03 (Copy Summary). Rationale: Based on early feedback, we agreed that copying text was a critical requirement for usability, even for our V1. [Link to supporting notes and data if applicable] | Product Mgr Eng Lead Design Lead |
FAQs
Question | ANSWER / STATUS | OWNER |
Will the summary feature work on emails written in languages other than English? | Resolved. This is a key consideration for our V2, not our V1. If we pursue it, we will perform a technical spike to evaluate the multi-language capabilities and costs of the GPT-4o API before we can commit to this. | Eng Lead |
Author’s Notes - Steps to Nip Confusion In the Bud
This appendix turns your PRD Template into a tool people actually use and trust every day.
- The Changelog Stops Confusion: It’s your go-to record for every key decision. If someone wants to know why something changed, you don’t have to search old emails or chats.
- The "Open Questions" Section Builds Trust: This section creates a space to ask questions, assign someone to find answers, and keep track until they’re sorted out. It stops surprises and helps the whole team stay on the same page.
Â
Get Your Free Toolkit
Put the framework into practice now with:
- A step-by-step Worksheet to guide your analysis
- Powerful AI Prompts to enhance your thinking
- A Worked Example showing the framework in action
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
▶️ Or Fill Out This Form Directly
Â
Â
Â
đź“«Â Join the Joyful Ventures Newsletter
Get regular insights on creating impactful and scalable ventures that put people first.
Related Posts
Workback Plan Template: A Tool to Prevent the Last-Minute Scramble
This workback plan template prevents chaos and last-minute scrambles.
Feeling Overwhelmed? Here's How to Prioritize Strategic Initiatives
Learn how to prioritize strategic initiatives with this simple VIP framework
Made with Bullet