I’m making a quick post today to define the term MRD – Market Requirements Document. I’m often asked about it, now I can just point everyone to this blog post!
Definition of MRD: Market Requirements Document
MRD is a document that is usually written by a Product Marketing Manager or a Product Manager. This document defines the high-level market requirements for a product or project. (See Types of Software Requirements for a list of various types of requirements).
An MRD usually contains the following information:
- Executive Summary
- Vision
- Target Market
- Competitive Positioning
- List of Features
- Derived from market needs
- Prioritized based on ROI
The following teams usually “consume” (i.e. read) the MRD:
- Business Analysis
- Engineering
- UI design
- Marketing
- Sales
- Executives
Don’t make this mistake!
Sometimes, people refer to MRD as “Marketing Requirements Document” (note the extra “ing”). Perhaps this is because it comes from the “Marketing” department. But “Market Requirements Document” is a better definition, as this is a document that contains market requirements.
MRD vs PRD
At many companies, the MRD is used to create another document – the Product Requirements Document (PRD). PRD is then used by Engineering and QA teams to build the product.
At some companies MRD and PRD are combined into one document. In this scenario, the MRD also contains the following information:
- Use Cases (Functional Requirements)
- Non-functional Requirements (Such as Security, Performance, Scalability, etc)
- Requirements are also prioritized
Further reading: Check out my previous post covering various types of requirements documents.
