As the product world has evolved over the last few years, outcome focus and idea discovery have taken over the way product managers lead their work. Heavily written product requirement documents have become a thing of the past, and a new way of outlining problem statements has emerged.
They key to a good problem outline is to make it easy to for everyone to understand. It shouldn’t require several pages to get to the point of what has to be done, and most important, why the decision was made in the first place.
Problem Outline Template
Below is a template I like to use with my team that has proven to be of great success.
Let’s break this down section by section to understand what this all means.
What problem are you trying to solve?
This focuses on the problem, not the solution. Instead of writing down “we need blue buttons,” focus on what the issue at hand actually is: improving accessibility in your product. This changes the perspective of the issue at hand, and gives you a more holistic view to start approaching the problem.
