How to state clearly and concisely the product requirements?

stay 《

Why are we always confused 「 What is the demand 」

》 in , We introduced 「 The nature of demand 」, It also introduces three methods to describe requirements 「 Structured language tools 」. This article , I hope to share two of these tools with you further ：

• Task specification  Job Spec

• Mission story  Job Story

Tool one ： Task specification  Job Spec

「 Task specification 」 It is a relatively complete and complex language tool , It is seldom used in practice . Echo ahead 「 The process of generating requirements 」,《 The innovator's dilemma 》 The author of a Book Clay Christensen  Define the task as 「

The promotion that users want to get in a specific scenario

」, The task must be related to a specific context , He went on to say ：

Mission 「 bring 」 The user is in a specific 「 scene 」 in , Available 「 promote 」.

A job enables the progress that an individual seeks in a given situation.

If you want to record a task , He put forward 「 Task specification 」 This language structure , In fact, it's also a 「 File structure 」：

• What the user is in 「 scene 」 in ？

• What do you want to achieve 「 promote 」？ Want to improve , What are the functional aspects 、 Social aspect 、 Emotional tasks ？

• What progress has been made 「 hinder 」？ What are the anxieties and obstacles ？

• What users reluctantly accept 「 An imperfect scheme 」？ We have to win something ？

• How to define well promoted 「 The quality of 」？ For quality , What users are willing to do 「 trade-offs 」？

If we finish the requirements exploration 、 User Research , According to the above five questions , Make a copy  1–3  page  A4  file . Because this structure is relatively complete 、 complex 、 It's not simple enough , So it is more suitable for the following situations ：

• As 「 Introduce the use theory 」 Tools for .

• Product or research team 「 Handover 、 Concentrate the research results 」 Tools for , Let the reader read the short text summary first , Then enter all kinds of  UX  Tools 、 Chart 、 The research results of audio-visual presentation , Speed up readers' understanding .

• When a project or product is started , First provide more concentrated 、 A shorter narrative , Then provide a link to the summary in the preceding paragraph , to 「 Want to know more about user needs 」 Teammate reference .

Tool two ： Mission story  Job Story

「 Mission story 」 Is currently the most widely used tool , But it has also been criticized by many researchers of utility theory , Because it oversimplifies , Easy to be misused . meanwhile , The proposer  Alan Klement  Is a controversial figure , Therefore, it offends the founders of many utility theories . however ,Job Story  Still a useful language tool .

Here's a picture , Succinctly illustrates  Job Story  The structure of the mission story ：

The format of the mission story , Replace user stories with task stories .

This method is further  Intercom  Carry forward , They further explained  Job Story  Mission story ：

• When (Situation)
  ： Scenarios that trigger requirements

• I Want to (Motivation)
  ： The user's choice motivation in the scene

• So I can (Expected Outcome)
  ： The expectation in the scene is raised

then , They will use  1–2  page  A4, Submit a file called  “Intermission”  The file of , As a product / Functional proposal . In this document , One of them is  Job Story, You should be able to tell the user's needs in a few hundred words . speculation  Intercom  Then I used these hundreds of words  Job Story  On behalf of this product / function , Quickly explain user requirements internally 、 Communicate development objectives .

However , Actually find out  Intercom  Of  Job Story  Case study , You will find several problems ：

• some  When  In fact, it doesn't say  Situation, Lost scene
  , Just put  As a user  Rewrite into  When I am a user , You can put  user  Replace with various portraits 、 role 、 Occupation and so on ;

for example , We have seen this kind of writing ：When I am a Customer Support Manager…  and  When I manage a Customer Support Team…

• Motivation  and  Expected Outcome  The repetition rate of is very high
  , Sometimes you can simply delete one .

If you have the above questions , that  Job Story  It loses its meaning . If you can avoid the above problems , The mission story is suitable for the following scenarios ：

• Instant verbal communication , Condense user requirements into  3  Sentence , Explain to your teammates .

• In the task or requirement pool  Description「 Task description 」 in , Briefly explain user requirements .

• imitation  Intercom, As a  PRD  Or products / One paragraph of the functional proposal , Explain user requirements , Arouse the reader's interest , Then go to more details 「 Task specification 」 or 「 User Research Report 」.

This article , Two 「 Structured language tools 」：

• Task specification  Job Spec

• Mission story  Job Story

But both tools have obvious drawbacks , How to make up for the shortcomings of these two tools ？ Is there a more concise language tool ？

Next article , Xiaobian will continue to introduce the last language tool to you 「 Expected results  Desired Outcome」, It will also explain how to connect these three tools , And how to complement the existing tools .

The author of this article : Jason HOU

Source of the article : Medium

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