- Introduction
- Foundational elements
- Relationships
- Product Requirement Documents
- Notion Templates
- Standalone PRD database
- Standalone PRD document
- Full Product documentation suite
- Product Roadmap
- Notion Templates
- Standalone Product Roadmap
- Full Product documentation suite
- Product Calendar
- Notion Templates
- Standalone Product Calendar
- Full Product documentation suite
- Feedback/Questions?
Introduction
This is a first of a few articles committed to helping product managers at companies large and small get a handle on their documentation.
In this article, I'll devote my time to the key tactical elements of product documentation that worked for my team at Cheetah. This guide is most useful for:
- Nascent/emerging product organizations who liaise with many teams
- Dispersed product "pods" (squads, PDE, whatever your company calls them)
- Product leaders who believe their current documentation processes need an overhaul
If you’d like to see the full set of PM resources, check them out here.
Foundational elements
The three foundational elements to product documentation are the following:
- Product Requirement Documents (PRD)
- Product Roadmap
- Product Calendar
These three components are evergreen and should be the source of truth for everything the product organization is planning/doing. Depending on the company, there may some sub-components, like quarterly product roadmap memos.
Relationships
The PRD is the source of truth and reference for all functionality that a feature has. A member of the organization can go to it so they understand what has been built, de-prioritized, or postponed for a future version.
Each product roadmap item is a transactional representation of the scope as determined by the product development process. A member of the organization can go to the product roadmap and see the status, prioritization, and relevant information to a feature they are following. As each product roadmap item is processed by the development cycle, it is released on the Product Calendar.
Each Product Calendar item is a distilled list of functionality, screenshots, tutorials, links to analysis, and anything a post-release support team would need to create their own documentation for sales processes, CS macros, operations SOPs, etc.
Product Requirement Documents
Each PRD should have the following properties:
- Status: This indicates what part of the workflow the PRD is in. Each PRD needs to be peer-reviewed and approved before the product development lifecycle starts.
- Product Manager: The individual product manager that is responsible for the PRD
- Product Roadmap Item(s): A relational link to the product roadmap that shows which product roadmap items are associated with the PRD
Notion Templates
Standalone PRD database
If you'd like to duplicate the standalone PRD database template, this will allow you to create a database of PRDs without the link to the product roadmap.
Standalone PRD document
This document is just the template of a PRD. It has no association with a database.
Full Product documentation suite
This is a link to a template that has all three components, with links to a Product Roadmap and to a Product Calendar.
Product Roadmap
Each Product Roadmap item should have the following properties:
- Status: Where in the product development workflow the task is in
- Product Manager: The product manager responsible for its release
- Engineering Manager: The engineering manager responsible for technical development, architecture, etc.
- Squad: The team responsible for development of the feature
- Platform Component(s): The various components that will have an internal/external-facing change to functionality
- PRD: A relational link back to the PRD that outlines the scope of the feature
- Epic Link: An external link to the development tracking platform of choice. At Cheetah, we linked the JIRA epic here.
- Design Link: An external link to the UI/UX specifications for the feature. This can be to Zeplin, Miro, Figma or whatever design platform being used by the design team.
- Start Date: Date when the epic is planned to be kicked off or started.
- End Date: Rollup to the date property on the Product Calendar item, or simply just the date that the feature is intended to be released.
- Product Calendar Item: A relational link to the Product Calendar item
Notion Templates
Standalone Product Roadmap
If you'd like to duplicate the standalone Product Roadmap template, this will allow you to create a database of PRDs without the links to PRDs and Product Calendar items.
Full Product documentation suite
This is a link to a template that has all three components, including links to a PRD database and to a Product Calendar.
Product Calendar
Each Product Calendar item should have the following properties:
- Release Date: The date the feature is first available to users. If there is a partial/slow release this should be indicated in the release notes (including A/B variation documentation if applicable)
- Product Roadmap Item: A relational link to the Product Roadmap item that it is associated with
- Web Version: The applicable release version for the web platform
- iOS Version: The applicable release version for the iOS app
- Android Version The applicable release version for the Android app
Notion Templates
Standalone Product Calendar
If you'd like to duplicate the standalone Product Calendar template, this will allow you to create a database of Product Calendar items without the links to PRDs and Product Roadmap items.
Full Product documentation suite
This is a link to a template that has all three components, including links to a PRD database and to a Product Calendar.
Feedback/Questions?
Shoot me a DM on twitter or email me if you have any feedback, questions, or more Notion template requests!