Business Writing (Docs, RFCs, PRDs)

Communication

Business writing cho product work: meeting notes, PRDs, RFCs, strategy memos, board updates, BLUF, decision logs và templates giúp teams ra quyết định rõ hơn.

Roadmap — Cách học và đạt kỹ năng

Skill này nằm ở đâu trong roadmap?

Business Writing, RFCs & PRDs xuất hiện từ BA Intern đến CPO vì writing là operating system cho product thinking. Ở entry level, writing là meeting notes rõ owner/next step. Ở Associate PM, writing là PRD. Ở Senior PM, writing là strategy memo. Ở Lead/Director, writing là executive communication. Ở CPO, writing là board narrative.

Good writing không phải viết dài. Good writing làm cho quyết định dễ hơn, giảm ambiguity và tạo shared memory cho team.

Document decision flow

Keyword definitions

Document	Purpose	When to use	What good looks like
Meeting notes	Capture facts, decisions, owners and next steps.	After stakeholder/user/team meetings.	No ambiguity about who does what by when.
PRD	Align problem, users, scope, UX, requirements, metrics and release plan.	Feature/product change with engineering work.	Engineering can build, QA can test, stakeholders know trade-offs.
RFC	Request feedback on proposal before commitment.	High ambiguity, technical/product architecture, cross-team impact.	Options, recommendation, open questions, decision deadline.
Strategy memo	Explain diagnosis, choices, bets, metrics and non-goals.	Quarterly/annual planning, major portfolio choice.	Leaders understand what gets cut and why.
Board update	Executive narrative for company-level product progress and risks.	CPO/VP level communication.	Concise, metric-backed, focused on decisions and risks.

PRD template you can follow

Section	Questions to answer	Common mistake
Problem	Who has the problem? How painful/frequent? What evidence?	Starting with solution.
Goals / non-goals	What outcome will change? What are we not solving?	Scope keeps expanding.
User stories	What jobs must users complete?	Writing internal tasks as user value.
Requirements	Functional, data, permissions, edge cases, performance.	Ignoring error/empty states.
Metrics	Success metric, guardrail, events/properties.	No analytics until after launch.
Rollout	Experiment, beta, migration, enablement, support readiness.	Assuming launch equals adoption.

Real-world scenario: PRD for AI resume scoring

Weak PRD: "Build AI CV scoring so recruiters can rank candidates."

Better PRD:

Problem: Recruiters spend 6-8 minutes per CV and miss candidates with transferable skills.
Target user: Recruiters hiring PM/BA roles with 50+ applicants per job.
Success metric: reduce first-pass screening time by 40% without reducing interview quality.
Requirements: parse PDF/DOCX, score skill match, explain score, flag missing evidence, allow recruiter override.
Guardrails: no protected attributes in scoring, confidence score shown, audit log for score changes.
Rollout: beta with 3 recruiters, compare AI shortlist with human shortlist, review false positives/negatives weekly.

RFC template

Use RFC when: decision has high cross-team impact, technical/product ambiguity, or disagreement. RFC should create feedback before the team commits.

Section	Content
Summary	BLUF recommendation in 3-5 sentences.
Context	Problem, constraints, users, business impact.
Options	At least 2-3 options with pros/cons.
Recommendation	Chosen option and why.
Risks	Technical, product, UX, legal, operational risks.
Open questions	Who needs to answer by when.
Decision date	When feedback closes and owner decides.

Writing examples: beginner vs senior

Beginner status update: "We worked on upload, parser, and UI. There are some bugs."

Senior status update: "Bottom line: launch is yellow. Parser accuracy is 82% vs 90% target; if not improved by Friday, we should launch beta to admins only. Decision needed: accept beta scope or delay 1 week. Owner: PM to recommend by Thursday EOD."

Executive memo rule: conclusion first, then evidence. If the reader only reads the first 6 lines, they should know the recommendation, why it matters, and what decision is needed.

Tools to use

Notion / Confluence / Google Docs: PRDs, RFCs, strategy memos, decision logs.
Linear / Jira: connect requirements to engineering tickets and release status.
Figma: link UX flows, states, prototypes and design decisions.
Amplitude / PostHog: define events, metrics and validation plan in the PRD.
Grammarly / Claude / ChatGPT: tighten structure, rewrite for BLUF, test if memo is clear.

Roadmap keyword coverage - các wording trên roadmap nghĩa là gì?

Roadmap dùng skill này ở nhiều level: meeting notes cho BA, PRD cho Associate PM, strategy memo cho Senior PM, executive/board communication cho leadership.

Roadmap wording	Ý nghĩa khi học skill này	Artifact / evidence	Bài tập thực hành
Ghi meeting notes rõ owner và next step	Capture facts, decisions, owners, deadline và open questions.	Meeting notes / decision notes	Sau meeting, gửi recap dưới 10 dòng với owner/date.
Viết PRD	Mô tả problem, user, scope, requirements, metrics, rollout và risks.	PRD	Viết PRD mini cho một feature có success metric.
Viết Strategy memo	Explain diagnosis, choices, bets, non-goals và metrics.	Strategy memo	Viết memo 1 trang: context, diagnosis, recommendation, risks.
Executive communication	BLUF, concise narrative, decision needed, risk và business impact.	Exec update	Rewrite roadmap status cho VP trong 6 bullets.
Board communication	Company-level product narrative: progress, bets, risks, asks.	Board product update	Draft 1 slide narrative: what changed, why it matters, ask.
Executive narrative	Storyline giúp leaders understand trade-off and decide.	Narrative memo	Turn a messy project update into conclusion -> reasons -> evidence.