Documents for Decision-Makers

At junior and mid-level, you mostly receive documents. PMs hand you a PRD, senior engineers share a design document, and you build.

At Staff+, that’s not enough. You need to be able to write and shape the docs that change roadmaps. 

That means you need fluency across three types of documents:

• PRD (product requirements document): Usually led by PMs, you should be able to write or co-author one. At minimum, you pressure-test PRDs by sharpening the problem, user, and metric so they’re decision-ready.

• 2-pager (decision memo): This is often your ownership zone. It bridges business goals and technical execution, lays out options, and quickly gets leadership to a yes/no.

• Design document: This is yours (sometimes with your team). It turns the decision into a concrete execution plan—architecture, risks, rollout, trade-offs.

Together, these artifacts create a 3-step process for product change:

1. Start with a five-line PRD.

2. Decide with a two-pager.

3. Land the decision with a design doc.

Let’s talk about what each one entails.

The 5-line PRD  

Your aim: capture the “what and why” in five lines.

1. Problem: One sentence on what’s broken or expensive today. Skip solutions—name the pain and where it shows up. 

2. User/segment: Who exactly feels that pain? Name a concrete slice (role, plan tier, region) so you don’t design for “everyone.” 

3. Outcome metric: Pick a number you will move, with a target and a timeframe. 

4. Constraints/assumptions: What is fixed or off-limits (privacy rules, timelines, tech choices, budget)?

5. Non-goals: Write what you are not doing so scope doesn’t creep.  

If a teammate can restate your ask in 15 seconds after reading these five lines, you nailed it.

The 2-pager

This is your decision memo—a short document a VP can skim between meetings and say, “Yes, do Option B.” It connects the 5-line PRD to a clear path forward.

Here’s the structure:

1. TL;DR (3–5 lines): Problem, metric, and your recommended option.

2. Options table (A/B/C): Lay out 2-3 real choices in a tiny table: impact (on the metric), effort (people × weeks), risks, and time to learn (how soon we’ll know if it worked)

3. Evidence: Back your point with whatever you can find—data points, user quotes, experiment results, etc.

4. Risks and guardrails: Define top 2–3 risks + your safety rails (flag, rollback, telemetry).

5. Decision ask + next steps: Write the question you need answered (“Approve Option B”) and list the owner + date for the first step.  

Here’s the sample 2-pager for our reports dashboard example.

Design document

Once the decision is made, the design document explains your execution plan.  

Here’s the structure: 

1. Context: A short paragraph answering “Why now?” Tie back to the PRD metric and any deadlines (seasonality, partner launch).

2. Proposal: How you’ll do it (one paragraph + simple diagram).

3. Alternatives: What you considered + tradeoffs.

4. Risks and mitigations: Top 3 risks with the mitigation you’ll ship (rate limits, step-up auth, feature flags).

5. Rollout and guardrails: Sequencing, flags, sample telemetry, and rollback steps.

6. Open questions: What’s unknown, who owns answering it, and by when.