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Ship the Spec

The specimen · one complete prompt, ungated

Judge the standard on the real thing.

This is prompt 01 of the free slice, published in full — nothing held back, no email required. Every prompt in the Vault is documented to this standard: when to use it, what to paste in, the prompt itself, a worked example, and the known failure modes — written down so you don't discover them mid-sprint.

All worked examples use Parcelio, a fictional B2B parcel-logistics quoting platform (carriers Nordfreight, TransIber, VeloCargo; quotes expire after 72h; dangerous-goods surcharges per parcel). Nothing here resembles any real client.

01. PRD & framing

Problem framing

A PRD opening that survives questions.

When to use
You have a fuzzy ask (“we need a customer portal v2”) and must open a PRD that won’t get shredded in review.
Paste in
The raw ask verbatim, who asked, the product’s one-line description, 3 bullet facts you know about the context.
You are a senior product owner on a regulated B2B platform. From the raw request below, draft the
PROBLEM section of a PRD — not the solution. Produce: (1) the problem in ≤3 sentences, stated as a
user/business pain with an observable symptom; (2) who is affected and how often (mark unknowns as
UNKNOWN, never invent numbers); (3) what happens if we do nothing; (4) 3 sharp questions I must
answer before this framing is trustworthy. Do not propose features. Do not use the word "leverage".

RAW REQUEST: [paste]
CONTEXT: [paste]

Known failure modes

  • Invents plausible-sounding metrics if you don’t force UNKNOWN.
  • Drifts into solutioning when the raw request already contains a feature idea — delete any solution sentences it sneaks in.

The worked example — a real(ish) input on Parcelio, a fictional logistics platform

Input

RAW REQUEST (Slack, verbatim, 24 June 2026):
"portal v2 needs to happen this half. big accounts keep calling support to re-download customs
docs and to check why their quote disappeared, it makes us look amateur. also Nordfreight's
account team says shipper coordinators want their whole team on one login?? can we get a v2 scoped"

WHO ASKED: VP Sales (owns renewal targets for the top-20 shipper accounts)
PRODUCT ONE-LINER: Parcelio is a B2B platform where shippers get multi-carrier parcel quotes,
book shipments, and retrieve customs documents via portal or REST API.
CONTEXT FACTS:
- "Portal" is the #2 support ticket category (I don't have the exact volume to hand)
- Quotes expire after 72h; expired quotes are hidden from the portal list today
- The portal has one shared login per customer account, no roles; built 2023, no PO since

Output

PROBLEM
Logistics coordinators at our largest shipper accounts cannot self-serve two routine tasks —
re-downloading a shipment's customs document pack, and seeing what happened to a quote after its
72h expiry (expired quotes vanish from the portal list) — so they call support instead.
Observable symptom: "portal" is the #2 support ticket category. The VP Sales reports this is
damaging Parcelio's credibility in renewal conversations with top-20 accounts.

WHO IS AFFECTED, HOW OFTEN
- Logistics coordinators at shipper accounts (all sizes; concentration in top-20 per VP Sales).
  Frequency: UNKNOWN — ticket volume and per-account frequency not yet pulled.
- Parcelio support team, absorbing the tickets. Volume: UNKNOWN.
- Share of tickets attributable specifically to customs-doc re-download vs. quote expiry vs.
  other portal issues: UNKNOWN.

IF WE DO NOTHING
Support load and the renewal-risk narrative persist. The shared-login model stays in place — a
likely blocker in enterprise security reviews, though no lost deal has been attributed to it yet
(UNKNOWN).

THREE QUESTIONS BEFORE THIS FRAMING IS TRUSTWORTHY
1. What is the actual monthly portal ticket volume, split by root cause? (Support tag export —
   the two named pains may not be the top two.)
2. Is any top-20 renewal concretely conditioned on portal changes, or is this a general
   impression from sales calls?
3. The raw request bundles three distinct problems (doc retrieval, expiry visibility, team
   logins/roles). Are we framing one initiative or three? Team logins is an access-model change,
   not a portal UX fix.

Note: no solutions proposed above; "portal v2" is the requester's solution label, not the problem.

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