Write product specs based on user stories
Product specifications are a list of specs for the product team that help them determine exactly what to build. The document should not list exactly what to build, but provide pain points, context about users and business needs so that product teams can decide exactly what to produce.
The specs should answer the following questions:
- What are we building and why?
- What should the final build achieve?
- How do we measure success?2
Once you have user stories developed, you can use ChatGPT to build the product specifications.
For example, let’s say you have the following user story developed by your user researchers about your productivity app:
John is a 32-year-old marketing manager with a demanding job and multiple projects to oversee. He values organization and efficiency to ensure he meets deadlines while maintaining work-life balance.
He needs a tool that can help him effectively prioritize and manage his tasks to ensure he completes projects on time, stays organized, and reduces the stress of juggling various responsibilities.
He wants to find a productivity app that can provide him with a clear overview of his tasks, their due dates, and their priorities. He aims to streamline his work processes, allocate his time wisely, and have the ability to shift tasks around as priorities change.
To translate this story into a product specifications document, take the user stories and ask ChatGPT to build the product specs with the prompt:
While you’ll need to input more information to determine technical specs and timelines, you can get a general sense of features that should be included in the document.
For this user story, ChatGPT gave us a long list of necessary features including:
Task Management:
- Create, edit, and delete tasks.
- Set due dates, priorities, and assign tasks to projects.
- Organize tasks into customizable lists or boards.
Task Prioritization and Reminders:
- Mark tasks as high, medium, or low priority.
- Send notifications and reminders for approaching deadlines.
- Configure reminder preferences based on the user's schedule.
Task Tracking and Progress:
- Track task progress (in progress, paused, completed).
- Visual representation of task completion rate and achievements.
Time Tracking:
- Log time spent on tasks.
- Generate time tracking reports and summaries.
Collaboration:
- Share tasks/projects with team members.
- Assign tasks to team members.
Product managers can take these features, prioritize them and put timelines and technical specifications next to each feature to build product specs.