Blog
Notes on Product Management craft.
Long-form on critique quality, the loop from idea to proposal, and what makes a PRD actually useful.
How to Write a PRD (That Survives Review)
How to write a PRD step by step, then write it so it survives review: the sections, the process, and the gaps a senior PM catches before engineering does.
Why Your Team Keeps Relitigating the Same Decision
CraftA decision that comes back was not badly made — it was badly stored. What a round of relitigation costs, and why the second round is worse than the first.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readWhere Product Decisions Go to Die
CraftTeams that write everything down still lose decisions. Specs record what was decided, never why or what was rejected — and retrieval is the harder half.
Galang Aulia · 6 min readHandoff Is a Document Problem, Not a Meeting Problem
CraftIf the spec needed a meeting to be understood, the meeting was patching it — and the patch is not written down anywhere. What handoff is actually for.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readWriting a Technical PRD Without Designing the System
CraftWhen the consumer is another service, the what/how line does not move — the user does. One test for which side any line belongs on.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readThe PRD an Engineer Actually Wants
CraftEngineers do not read a spec top to bottom. What they skip, what they re-read, and the five things they wish were in there and usually are not.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readWhy Engineers Can't Estimate Your Spec
CraftSix ambiguities that make an estimate impossible, the question each produces, and why a wide range measures the document rather than the engineer.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readPrototype Fidelity: How Real Is Real Enough?
CraftFidelity is three independent dials, not one. Which to raise depends on the decision you need — and too much fidelity costs more than too little.
Galang Aulia · 4 min readWhat to Prototype and What to Just Specify
CraftSome requirements have a picture and some do not — and the invisible half is where incidents come from. A rule for allocating between prototype and spec.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readAI Prototype Generators: What They Can and Cannot Build
CraftThe three kinds of AI prototype generator, what to evaluate before picking one, and the four limits that decide whether the output is useful or just fast.
Galang Aulia · 6 min readPRD Best Practices That Survive Contact With a Team
CraftSeven practices that hold up under a deadline, plus five that sound right and never survive — each with the specific failure it prevents or causes.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readGood PRD vs Bad PRD: The Same Feature, Written Twice
CraftOne feature, two specs. The weak one is not badly written — it is well written and empty, which is exactly why it passes review.
Galang Aulia · 7 min readWhat a PRD Test Plan Actually Covers
CraftWhere the spec ends and the test plan begins, the four things a PRD must supply for testing to be possible, and how to spot an untestable requirement.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readThe Dependencies You Forgot to Write Down
CraftFive classes of dependency that go unwritten in PRDs — team, technical, data, legal, vendor — and the one question that surfaces each of them.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readScope: Writing the "Not Doing" List
CraftMost PRDs write what is in scope and stop. The exclusion list is what prevents the scope fight that arrives after approval, when your leverage is gone.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readEvery Screen Needs an Error State
CraftError states are the most-skipped requirement class in a PRD. The seven failure modes worth specifying, and the five things to write for each one.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readThe Edge Cases Your PRD Is Missing
CraftFive lenses for finding the edge cases a spec leaves out — boundary, sequence, permission, concurrency, absence — and what to write once you find one.
Galang Aulia · 6 min readPRD to Prototype: Turning a Spec Into Something Clickable
CraftHow to go from a written PRD to a clickable prototype, what an AI prototype generator can and cannot infer from your spec, and the gaps the exercise exposes.
Galang Aulia · 6 min readPRD vs MRD vs BRD vs SRD: Which Doc Do You Actually Need?
CraftA plain comparison of the PRD, MRD, BRD, SRD and RFC — what each one answers, who writes it, when it earns its keep, and when it is ceremony.
Galang Aulia · 6 min readHow to review someone else's PRD
CraftHow to review another PM's spec when you lack their context: separate real gaps from decisions nobody told you about, rank findings by severity, and disagree in writing without stalling the draft.
Galang Aulia · 7 min readHow to run a spec review meeting (not a read-aloud)
CraftHow to run a PRD or spec review meeting that produces decisions: the silent-read open, a fixed four-block agenda, who owns which role, and what to write down before anyone leaves.
Galang Aulia · 6 min readNobody teaches PMs how to review a PRD
CraftEvery Product course teaches you to write the spec. None teach you to read one and break it. That gap explains most of what goes wrong in review, and most of what AI writing tools quietly make worse.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readPRD Example: A Sample PRD and Its Critique
CraftA complete example PRD for a real feature, then the exact gaps an 11-pass critique flags in it, with the fix for each. See what review actually catches.
Galang Aulia · 6 min readPRD Template (With the Review Checks Built In)
CraftA copyable PRD template with the review check baked into every section, so the gaps a critique would flag are harder to leave in. Copy it and start writing.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readWhat Is a PRD? Product Requirements Document, Explained
CraftWhat is a PRD (product requirements document)? The plain definition, what goes in one, who writes it, and the review step most definitions leave out.
Galang Aulia · 7 min readAI PRD Reviewer vs Writer: What's the Difference
CraftAn AI PRD writer drafts a spec from a prompt. An AI PRD reviewer reads the spec you have and finds where it breaks. Why you need both, not one.
Galang Aulia · 6 min readBest AI PRD Review Tool: An Honest Comparison
CraftA fair, dated comparison of AI PRD review tools (Thinkr, ChatPRD, PMPrompt, Centercode) on the one thing that matters: does it publish its review rubric?
Galang Aulia · 8 min readCan AI Review a PRD? Yes, and What It Catches
CraftCan AI review a PRD? Yes, and it is a different job than writing one. What it catches reliably, what it cannot, and whether it is safe to paste your spec.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readCommon PRD mistakes (and the check that catches each one)
CraftThe seven PRD mistakes that get specs sent back (solution-first framing, unfalsifiable metrics, missing edge cases) and how to catch each before review.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readHow to critique your own PRD before anyone else does
CraftA six-step way to review your own PRD like a skeptic, find the missing sections, pressure-test the metrics, and catch the gaps before your team does.
Galang Aulia · 5 min readNon-functional requirements checklist (ISO 25010)
CraftA non-functional requirements checklist for PMs, built on the ISO/IEC 25010 quality model. Eight attributes, the question to answer, and a measurable NFR example each.
Galang Aulia · 9 min readPRD evaluator score: how to read a 1-5 PRD grade
CraftWhat a PRD evaluator score actually means, what each grade on a 1-5 scale signals, and where the launch-readiness line sits. Stop treating the number as a black box.
Galang Aulia · 7 min readThe 11-Point PRD Review Checklist a Senior PM Runs
Craft11 checks a senior PM runs on a PRD, what each one catches, and the standard it maps to. Copy the list; run it before the spec reaches engineering.
Galang Aulia · 9 min readHow to Write Testable Acceptance Criteria
CraftTurn vague acceptance criteria into runnable Gherkin Given-When-Then a tester can verify, plus measurable non-functional criteria like p95 latency under 500ms.
Galang Aulia · 7 min readWhat makes a good PRD (and how to know yours is one)
CraftA good PRD is one your team can act on without you in the room. The qualities that define the bar (framed problem, falsifiable metrics, testable criteria) and how to measure against it.
Galang Aulia · 4 min readFrom research to proposal: the loop that is missing from Product tools
ProductMost Product tooling covers one slice of the workflow. Thinkr covers the chain. That is the actual unlock.
Galang Aulia · 4 min readWhat makes a PRD critique actually useful
CraftThree principles that separate critique that ships better PRDs from critique that wastes the reviewer’s time.
Galang Aulia · 3 min readHow Thinkr critiques a PRD: a worked example
CraftA walkthrough of an 11-pass critique on a real product spec. What it caught, what it missed, why the structure matters more than the model.
Galang Aulia · 5 min read