I haven’t read Empowered yet, but I think I’ve used something similar in the past that I’ve called the Product Framing Document (PFD). It shouldn’t be longer than 5-6 pages. The PFD is one outcome of the research and synthesis phase of product development. I like to keep it high-level and consumable, but with enough detail to establish a common understanding across stakeholders. I’ve used it to help focus roadmap and investment discussions, and serve as a touchstone throughout the development process. It can be a starting point for creating detailed epics and user stories. I’ve seen marketing, sales, and other GtM departments use the document as input for their materials as well.
The work that I’ve usually done before writing a PFD includes:
- User research and contextual inquiries
- Persona analysis
- Value Drivers and Problem Statements / User Goals
- Market Requirements, including competitive research
- Brainstormed solutions and idea generation (“how might we”)
- Rough MVP definition
- Low-fi wireframes
Every time I write a PFD it looks a little different depending on the scope of the project, but overall it follows the same format. I try to address all of the following topics if relevant to the project:
- Definition of the market problem or opportunity that the product will address
- Quantify the problem and its impact as much as possible
- The vision, outcomes, personas
- How we will measure success
- High-level features, assumptions, and dependencies
- Features, concepts, and work that is out of scope
- Initial design and architecture materials, if available
- Resource requirements and project timing