Requirements Documents Misconceptions
There are various misconceptions regarding requirements documents, particularly the Market Requirements Document (MRD) and the Product Requirements Document (PRD).
The MRD and PRD are tools that manifest a certain technique. Important to realize is what the MRD and PRD represent and if theory they are based on is valid and can be practically applied.
Often supported by algorithmic feature prioritization and uses cases, requirements documents can be an extremely robust, powerful yet flexible method to product management and product development. They can be efficiently employed in a sequential or iterative product development environment, and successfully applied to goods and services in B2B or B2C, in high-tech or traditional industries.
Arguments that requirements documents are inherently outdated or voluminous are incorrect and most likely based on working with the wrong template or skewed workplace experience.
Scrum's product backlog and the popular Product Backlog Item (PBI) of user stories are not by any measure a substitute to requirements documents. Agile is a product development framework and Scrum is a product development method – both unrelated to product management.