Main takeaways: - How to get full clarity and identify the biggest challenges in a project before a single line of code is written. - Driving alignment across stakeholders - Importance of reviewing with diverse stakeholders

1. www.productschool.com
Importance of Narrative Writing in PM
by Amazon Principal PM

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5. IMPORTANCE OF
NARRATIVE WRITING
Sid Nabar
Principal Product Mgr, Alexa, Amazon

6. Hi! I’m Sid

7. What is Narrative
Writing
• Writing in full sentences and paragraphs
• Flows like a story but content is technical
• Good writing is –
✔ Clear in its purpose
✔ Precise
✔ Easy to read
✔ Tailored to its audience
✔ Objective

8. What is Narrative
Writing
•Q3 launch delay
•High latency
•NPS under target
We propose delaying our 31-Aug launch to 31-Sep.
There are two reasons for this: first, our P50 end-to-end
latency is X ms, Z% higher than our target of Y ms; and
second, our NPS score is X.x (vs target of Y.y) and z% of
customers cited high latency as their top dissatisfaction
reason.
Amazon writing style tips:
https://twitter.com/destraynor/status/1258372157706510336?lang=en

9. Benefits
•Easier to identify gaps or lack of detail
•Forces specificity and clarity of thinking
•Non-linear consumption
•Supports variable speed
•Scales beyond creator (no narration)
•The WHAT, the WHY and supporting
data are all in one place

10. Types of Writing
• Working backwards: Product definition
• Decision document
• Status review
• Roadmap proposal
• …

11. Why it’s important

12. Working Backwards
structure
•4 parts:
▪Press Release
▪Tenets/Guiding Principles
▪Customer FAQs
▪Internal FAQs
•Sample product: A global social
network where users can only post
positive news

13. Press Release
• Announce the launch of your product
• Key highlights for customers
• Highlights target customer personas
• How it makes their life better
• How do they access and use it?
• As specific as possible without being
implementation specific.

14. Press Release:
Why it’s important
• Is this worth building?
• What are the top, non-negotiable
aspects of the product?
• Are we building the right experience?
• Is this impactful or novel enough?
• Would customers use it this way?
• Is this a complete story?

15. Guiding Principles
•Help settle debates throughout the project
•Enable scaling/consistency of decisions
•Can change with time or based on learning
- Always maintain customer trust
- UI must be fast and snappy
- Maximize user engagement
- Focus on building best-in-class features
▪ Prioritize customer trust over monetization
▪ Choose performant UI over new functionality
▪ Prefer habitual engagement over new user
acquisition
▪ Focus first on user satisfaction then global
expansion

16. Customer FAQs
• Detailed customer experience:
• how to get started
• how to use the product
• available options
• Relation to existing products
• Is it free or paid?
• Be as specific as possible
• Use simple language

17. Customer FAQs:
Why they’re
important
• Is there too much friction?
• Would this make sense to customers?
• Are there too many paper cuts?
• Are we trading off magical UX for
technical ease?
• Is the distinction from similar products
clear enough?

18. Internal FAQs
•Why are we doing this?
•Product-Market fit
•What are the big debates/risks?
•What are the key investments needed?
•Feasibility
•Alternate approaches considered

19. Internal FAQs:
Why they’re
important
• Is this the right business model?
• What are the one way doors?
• Are there synergies with other projects?
• Is this the right technical approach?
• Is the plan missing important aspects?
• Are the costs + risks worth the reward?

20. Try it out!
• Pick a product you are working on
• Write a PR + FAQs
• Have someone else review it
• Tweet @SidharthNabar with
#writeadoc about your experience

21. Thank you!
My team is hiring! Apply at amazon.jobs
Reach out at www.linkedin.com/in/sidharthnabar

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