58: Death to PRDs?

In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board members Red Russak and Soumeya Benghanem welcome Saumil Shrivastava (UiPath) and Mark Cramer (Meta) to talk about the death to PRDs. What is a PRD and can it be removed from a company? How can this tool help a PM’s job and what is its relationship with backlogs? A PM should be able to understand the importance of PRD and how it can be a starting point to get anything done.    *Disclaimer: “All opinions of the speakers are their own.”   Support for How to Succeed in Product Management is brought to you by Apptentive, which enables product managers to measure shifts in customer emotion and gather actionable feedback across the mobile customer journey. To learn more, go to Apptentive.com/UW.   What to Listen For: 00:00 Intro 05:13 What is a PRD? 08:15 PRDs are the starting point to get anything done 09:25 Have a goal 11:41 Format doesn’t matter 12:28 Strategy documents 14:55 A part in PRDs that can be removed 17:20 Backlogs 19:16 Strategy depends on the size of the team 21:22 Relationship between PRDs and backlogs 24:59 Shifting focus from PRD to backlog overtime 27:18 Purpose is different 29:31 Backlogs are a PMs domain 30:43 Project managers and engineering manager on backlogs 33:46 Sometimes effectiveness is more important than efficiency 36:30 Advice for beginners in PRD 39:13 Find a mentor 40:39 Your job is not about the tool 42:42 Final thoughts