Mid-Month PM Roles & Tech Tips Newsletter #02
Welcome to the Skiplevel mid-month newsletter edition #02!
Scroll down to see this month's selection of PM & tech tips, along with product job listings from senior to entry-level roles from both startups and established companies 👀
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This issue's PM & Tech Resource:
3 Tips for writing Business Requirement Documents (BRD)
Remember that a big part of the PM's role is to support and enable devs to build. Being able to visualize and easily understand what the product/feature should look like is a big part of enabling devs to do their best work.
Here are several tips to help your business requirements document (BRD) writing process:
- Be sure to use diagrams in your BRD. In fact, diagrams should be the bulk of the document. Ask yourself first if each requirement in your BRD can be visualized as a flow diagram. If yes, create a flow diagram and add text for clarification. Use a proper tool, such as LucidChart, to create diagrams. Diagramming supports a lot of different types of diagrams including if/else, user flow, and software architecture diagrams.
- Provide proper mockups for all UI/UX. In order to create an UI, developers need exact details on what the design should look like, from the colors to fonts to margins to graphics, etc. As the PM, you should work with a UX or graphic designer to create pixel-perfect mockups according to design specs and feature requirements. This means no screenshots with some text edits made in Paint or Photoshop!
- Include engineers early on in the BRD process. Technical limitations affect product considerations. This is why it's important to include engineers early on in the BRD writing process. Engineers can provide valuable insights into which features or requirements are unrealistic, and what are better options that may be faster/easier to implement and still fulfill your product needs.
More details about each of the above business requirement documentation tips in this tweet thread:
#productmanagers, if you want to write a business requirement doc that your dev team will love, start using more diagrams!
— Irene Yu (@iamireneyu) February 21, 2022
In fact, diagrams should be the bulk of the doc. Ask yourself first if the req can be visualized as a flow diagram, then add text for clarification.
New Product Roles, hot off the posting press!
Here are this week's new product roles:
Sr Product Manager @ Amazon Music (Culver City, CA)
Sr Product Manager @ Disney (Remote, New York, NY)
Sr Product Manager @ Lumen Technologies (Remote)
Sr Product Manager @ The Walt Disney Company (Santa Monica, CA)
Sr Product Manager @ Activision Blizzard (Irvine, CA)
Sr Product Manager @ Hopper (San Francisco, CA)
Product Manager @ Apple (Cupertino, CA)
Product Manager @ The Home Depot (Atlanta, GA)
Product Manager @ The Job Network (New York, NY)
Product Manager @ LA Times (El Segundo, CA)
Product Manager @ Dropbox (Charlotte, NC)
Product Manager @ Twill (Remote)
Product Manager @ Paylocity (Remote)
Product Manager @ Big Fish Games (Austin, TX)
Product Manager @ Wurl (Palo Alto, CA). Funding status: Series B
Product Manager @ Petco (San Diego, CA)
Product Manager @ TikTok (Los Angeles, CA)
Product Manager @ Elphas (Madison, WI). Funding status: Series B
Product Manager @ Tripadvisor (Needham, MA)
Associate Product Manager @ Morgan Stanley (New York, NY)
Associate Product Manager @ Comcast (New York, NY)
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