“Good product managers know the market, the product, the product line, and the competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of knowledge and confidence”- Ben Horowitz
This quote was the foundation of our team’s journey toward becoming product managers. We had just completed an intense 4-week Side Hustle internship that introduced us to the world of product management. Now, we had the opportunity to showcase our skills and apply what we had learned in a boot camp project. The task at hand was to create a Product Requirement Document (PRD) for a Food Delivery Mobile App.
Our team was excited to begin the project and on Monday morning, we scheduled our first meeting with the product design team. Unfortunately, the product design team was unavailable for the meeting, so we rescheduled for later in the day. We decided to make the most of our time and conducted a standup meeting to get everyone on the same page.
During this meeting, we were able to define the timeline for the project and also identified the deliverables for each collaborating team. After this, we conducted a poll where we voted between suggested app names which led us to decide on the app name to be ”Belly Time".
The next day, at our standup meeting at 8 pm, the product design team was able to deliver and present a well-detailed case study that included the problem statement, goal statement, user personas, and user flow. They conducted a user research survey with the help of Google Forms and identified the challenges that needed to be addressed for a successful food delivery app. These challenges included limited restaurant options, late delivery, limited payment methods, and an unfriendly user interface.
At this point, as the product management team lead, I was delighted, as I knew we were in for a jolly collaborative experience because everyone on the team had meaningful contributions and suggestions to help the product design team deliver better on their task.
Getting back to my team, we decided on the way to go about our project and the first step we took was understanding the case study presented to us by the product design team; we analyzed the items contained in it and proceeded to prioritize ten features which will form the basis of our PRD. After careful consideration, we came up with features like restaurant search, ordering, real-time order tracking and updates, payment options, customer support, menu browsing, ratings and reviews, order customization, loyalty programs and rewards, and a wallet. At this stage, I was filled with so much confidence about the team as everyone contributed to the decision made. I realized that It is easy to lead when team members are super cooperative.
Then it was Wednesday, the third standup meeting, and the product design team presented the corrections made to their work, which helped my team to finalize the decision on the prioritized features. My very supportive assistant and I brainstormed on the items to be contained in our PRD and assigned the items as tasks among members of the team. We then proceeded to ClickUp - a project management tool for easy task management. This helped us to create a comprehensive PRD that included functional and non-functional requirements, user stories, pain points, acceptance criteria, milestones, success metrics, and a roadmap.
On Thursday, during the fourth standup meeting, we were only able to present a very brief draft of our PRD. During this meeting, which had all the collaborating teams, it dawned on my teammates and me that we have to move as quickly as possible if we must meet up with the deadline for submission, which was 11:59 pm on Friday. We had to race ahead of time.
Everyone got to work. As research was going on for the competitive analysis, questions were being asked about the target audience and personas, suggestions and observations were flying in the air. It was intense. I’m sure that if our coordinator - Drey had seen us, he would have laughed, saying we are getting what he promised us. We were stretched indeed.
One of our major challenges was conducting a competitive analysis. The assignee got to work using the SWOT analysis and identified Jumia Food and Bolt Food as our direct competitors. The team gave their input and suggestions and she was able to identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats delivering a bull's eye submission. Another challenge we faced was, one of our team members came down with an illness that disallowed her from continuing the task assigned to her. The team decided on the way to go and worked on the task, delivering it on time. It was a wholesome experience overall.
Throughout this process, we kept our channels of communication active, having meetings to discuss updates, prioritize tasks, and ensure that we were on track to meet our goals. We worked hard, and our team’s dedication and organization paid off.
In the end, we were able to create a comprehensive PRD that we hope will meet the needs of both users and stakeholders. I am certain the team has become confident and knowledgeable product managers after this task and there’s a renewed resilience to take on new challenges in the future.
Click here to view Belly Time Product Requirement Document.