#218 - The PRFAQ Framework: Amazon's Secret to Successful Innovations - Marcelo Calbucci

[00:01:14] Introduction

Henry Suryawirawan: Hello, everyone. Welcome to a new podcast episode. So today I have with me Marcelo Calbucci. He’s the author of the book titled The PRFAQ Framework. Maybe some of you have heard about it, maybe some of you don’t. But this framework is popularized or maybe more like come from Amazon, right? So not many people probably have heard about that, because, yeah, it’s something that is still kind of like picking up in terms of adoption. So Marcelo today will tell us what is PRFAQ? Why it is so powerful inside Amazon? And maybe how can we use that to, you know, start in our work. So Marcelo, welcome to the show.

Marcelo Calbucci: Thank you for having me, Henry.

[00:02:10] Career Turning Points

Henry Suryawirawan: Right, Marcelo in the beginning, I always love to invite my guests to maybe share a little bit more from your career. Any turning points that you think we all can learn from you?

Marcelo Calbucci: Yeah, sure. I started early on when I was a teenager writing software, um, first for myself, then for my family, then it became a business. And I went to university to study computer science. Shortly after graduating, Microsoft went to Brazil to recruit software engineers to come to the US work for the company. So I end up here in Seattle, and worked at Microsoft for seven years. Most of the time there, I worked at Bing. So going to Microsoft was definitely a big shift on my career. Also leaving Microsoft was a big shift on my career, because I became a founder. And for 18 years, I founded and worked on many startups and startup studios, both in the US and in the UK. And three years ago, I joined Amazon, which is the opposite of a startup, if you will. A company with more than 1.5 million employees. So it’s massive. And as soon as I joined Amazon, I really fell in love with this PRFAQ framework that they invented to discuss strategy and vision. And I really felt that it was going to be, it is going to be useful for founders and product leaders and tech leaders everywhere. So when I left Amazon, I decided to write a book about it. Wrote a book and published just a couple months ago. And here am I talking to you about this.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. So I think it’s very interesting. You have been in some big tech companies, Microsoft and Amazon, right? And you have gone to, you know, entrepreneurship yourself, you know, founding companies over companies, 18 years. That’s pretty long time. And I’m sure because of that experience, you understand the power of these kind of framework in such big tech companies, right?

[00:03:56] The PRFAQ Framework

Henry Suryawirawan: So PRFAQ framework. Maybe in a gist, tell us what is it all about? Or what it is actually, is it like a product management tool? Is it a project management tool? Or maybe something else?

Marcelo Calbucci: The PRFAQ is an innovation tool, and it stands for press release and frequently asked questions. And the press release is not really a marketing tool. It is a tool to describe a vision. So you write a press release as if the future was already here. So people reading this document can paint this vision and understand what you’re trying to do. And it’s a six page document that has a specific way to write. And there is a specific method on how you create and how you use it as well. So this combined makes up the PRFAQ system, if you will. It was invented by Amazon 20 years ago, and it’s used for all kinds of innovations, not only product. But at Amazon it was used for new businesses, policies, process changes to add a new service, a program for customers or internal program from IT, HR or finance, all kinds of innovations that can be, you know, explained in the form of a vision and strategy. So the way I like to say, to simplify, is that the PRFAQ is a tool for you to discover, debate, and decide on a vision and a strategy for any kind of innovation.

[00:05:19] PRFAQ is Forward-Looking

Henry Suryawirawan: Well, very interesting, uh, you know, description about PRFAQ, right? I think I remember the first time I saw it, I don’t know how many years ago, it is kind of like different than, you know, typical artifacts we create for, you know, I don’t know, like creating innovations, creating product or business process and things like that. One thing that you mentioned is about, you know, vision, right? There’s a forward looking as if it already happens today. So why, should we think in terms of future as if it is already happening today? So what’s the power in this kind of explanation?

Marcelo Calbucci: So the PRFAQ starts from the outcome, right? Like you wanna describe what is the opportunity that you’re pursuing in terms of the benefits for the customer and for your business. So you paint the vision, the future of we launched this product and customer are using and they are extracting this benefit and this value from the product, and the business is generating this benefit and this value for itself. So you start from that point on, and then you work backwards to define the strategy and what you need to make that a reality. And part of the PRFAQ is also to describe very clearly and succinctly what are the problem that you’re trying to solve? Who is the customer? What is the solution? How are customers dealing with that problem today? How are they gonna find all those elements that are very important to discuss before you start building or doing anything, right? In a world of like people that are hungry to make things happen, they just jump and start executing without answering some fundamental questions about like, what exactly are we trying to do here?

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. So I think, yes, so many techies, including myself, sometimes we are so excited about the idea and we just jump into implementation, building, and share it later and think about, I don’t know, all the different details and outcomes. So building sometimes can be, uh, very, um, painful mistakes, right? So I think the most important thing is to think about the outcome first.

[00:07:09] Working Backwards & PRFAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: So you mentioned something about working backwards, so I think it is also very popular methodology from Amazon. Is PRFAQ part of, uh, working backwards framework, or is there anything working in synergy with other methodologies in Amazon?

Marcelo Calbucci: Working backwards is a practice within Amazon, right? It’s almost like a philosophy within Amazon. PRFAQ is a manifestation of that. It is very specific, right? There is a six page document. There is very specific way that you format and style this document, specific ways that you write the content of the document and how you use it. So you can think of PRFAQ as the concrete version of working backwards. Working backwards as a philosophy really means understanding your customer and what you’re trying to achieve and working backwards from that. PRFAQ is one way of doing that.

[00:07:58] Why Writing a Book About PRFAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: So you mentioned you have seen, uh, the power of this framework and you fell in love with it. Why writing a book about it? So is there something that you wanna teach to the people outside of the, you know, Amazon?

Marcelo Calbucci: I think the important thing is to imagine like what is the world without the PRFAQ and what are the problems that we have without the PRFAQ. So what you often have is either people that come up with a solution for something and start building immediately without questioning or like aligning people around them, or forcing alignment in a way that is not natural. Or you have people that create like Google slides and presentations, right? And try to tell the story of a vision and a strategy. And that is always a weak way of presenting a vision strategy. Because, you know, when you are doing a presentation, sometimes the charisma of the person or the enthusiasm of the person clouds people vision of like what this should really be, right? And challenge people in terms of authority or seniority that they don’t feel comfortable challenging. So you have to be careful with those systems of creating new things, right?

The PRFAQ avoids all of this, because, first, it’s a written document. And when you are writing, you really think very deeply about what you’re writing. So it’s not unusual for you to start writing something and pause and realize, oh, wait a second, I actually don’t understand this well enough. Let me go do some more in understanding of the problem or the solution, or the technology or the market or the customer or whatever I need to understand so that I can write a paragraph about it, right? That is very useful. You don’t need that when you do PowerPoint. You just put a statement on the PowerPoint and like hope for the best. So writing is a form of thinking, if you will.

The other aspect of that is, as you write this, you become really good at articulating an idea. Because your brain like absorbs and recall the information much better. Not only that, but the people reading it, are able to provide much richer feedback on what you’re doing, right, versus trying to interrupt you while you’re giving a presentation using slides or whatever, right? Or a diagram or anything else. So it helps both sides of the equation. The people coming up with the idea and the people and the people providing feedback on that idea as well.

There is one more element, which is often we create PRDs or many artifacts as a way to sell it or to get buy-in from people into that. PRFAQ is the opposite of that. You’re pulling people into collaborating with you to create this document. Because you’re not the expert on everything. And you’re gonna need many different sides and many different angles to look at this document and help you fill the gaps on what you don’t really understand.

Henry Suryawirawan: Well, I think that’s, uh, the first very visible distinction, right? So, so many people, I’m also trained in the industry, you know, seeing people presenting new ideas by using slides, you know, PowerPoint, Google Slides, whatever that is, right? And it depends on the presenter or maybe the, I don’t know, the product owner or the owner of the initiative to actually explain what it is all about. And yeah, I mean, we share the slides, but some people might have different interpretation, right? Because slides typically maybe full of visuals and short text, right?

I think the first key distinction I can see is that the PRFAQ is a written document. You’ve mentioned six pages long. So that means it’s kind of like full of narration, right? So people can follow the thought process or maybe there are certain aspects that we’ll cover shortly. So I think thanks for pointing that.

[00:11:37] PRFAQ: Why Less Adoption Than Other Frameworks?

Henry Suryawirawan: So one thing also, It seems like not many people adopted like other, you know, big tech giants framework, things like OKR or maybe PRD or maybe, I don’t know, MVP Canvas and all that. So why is it not the case for PRFAQ?

Marcelo Calbucci: Yeah, so I love that you mentioned OKR, right? OKR is somewhat new. Like it’s not that old, if you think about it. Companies really started adopting OKRs over the last 10 years or so, even less than that. But OKRs have been around for more than 20 years. Like Intel invented OKRs in the nineties, right? And Google adopted OKRs in ‘98 when it was formed. So we took until 2015 or so for people to really start adopting it. And that was because of some people putting YouTube videos, some people writing books about it, more people writing articles, people learning about it and like just adopting the framework.

I think PRFAQ has been behind, because there hasn’t been enough content out there or explanations out there of what it is, when to use it, how to use it, and what not to use it for, right? So this is just the beginning of the PRFAQ journey. If you look for PRFAQ content, most of the content has been published in the last two, three years. And, you know, it’s picking up steam, it’s slow, and it’s gonna take time.

But the other aspect of it is PRFAQ is a written document. And a lot of people feel uncomfortable saying, I’m not a good writer, so I can’t write one. And I understand that. But it’s not true because most people can write a PRFAQ. There is a formula to write a PRFAQ, right? As long as you write using this formula, you’re gonna get a level of result. You can get better at it, you can be really good at it. But you don’t need to be a good writer to get started. You just need to get started to get started. And the first few times that you do, it’s probably not gonna be great. So take your time to, to learn how to do it.

The other resistance that I’ve seen on people not adopting PRFAQ is that they believe people are not gonna want to read it. And that is true if you live in an environment of PowerPoint and people don’t wanna read anything. But once they start seeing the value of reading or the pre-reading a PRFAQ before discussing a meeting, they start to realize, oh, thisis very valuable actually, because everyone is talking about the same thing versus, you know, three people in a meeting been discussing one topic with the fourth person, not realize that they missed an important email or a previous meeting and being completely lost, right? The PRFAQ elevates everyone to the same context.

Henry Suryawirawan: Yeah. So thanks for mentioning some of the common resistances that people might have in terms of PRFAQ. Sometimes, uh, I think, I don’t know, I used to work in a startup world, you know, many people have this bias for action, right? They just want to execute, execute, execute. Maybe, I don’t know, the leaders have a bright idea in their mind, right? And they just wanna execute it and, you know, fill in the blanks, so to speak for the other people.

[00:14:40] Writing PRFAQ vs Speed of Execution

Henry Suryawirawan: So I think, writing a document, first of all, some people might think, oh, I need to spend some more time to write it. Or for readers, they also need to spend more time to read about it. So what is your take about this, right? For people who are still thinking that, maybe doing the action and speed of execution matters most than, you know, writing this kind of stuff first.

Marcelo Calbucci: That’s a great question, you know. What you have to look at is the total length of a project, not any single activity, right? And not only the total length of your project, the impact and the result of the project for the business. So who cares if you ship something really fast? But like your users didn’t care, it didn’t deliver any value to your business, maybe even created more risk for your business, right? That’s not a good outcome at all.

So what I say about the PRFAQ is, yes, it takes a week or two for a normal size project to write and use the PRFAQ. What that gonna do is, is gonna reduce more than the amount invested in the total length of the project, because there is gonna be fewer misalignment, fewer needs for coordination, people are gonna be able to make decisions independently because they understand the vision and the strategy without having to sync all the time. There’s gonna be fewer emails going around. So the project is gonna move faster with a PRFAQ, even though in the beginning it’s gonna feel like, this is slow. Let’s stop this, let’s just start building.

But you’ve been there, like all of us have been to projects that were like nightmarish, like that no one agrees. Like what exactly are we doing? Why we are doing, why we’re doing this way? So the PRFAQ avoids a lot of that. It doesn’t eliminate. It’s important to say that. There is no guarantee that a project is gonna be successful. But it reduces the chance of failure, at least on the most basic cases.

[00:16:28] The PRFAQ Template

Henry Suryawirawan: So I think we have built people’s anticipation to learn about this PRFAQ. So let’s dive deep into what is PRFAQ. Like you mentioned, right? It’s not just like some, you know, six page long document that people can just write in any kind of a way. So I think there’s a certain methodology, there’s a certain constraints actually that is being put in as part of the framework. So maybe let’s start. You know, what are the some important stuffs, the main sections of PRFAQ so that we can actually understand it better.

Marcelo Calbucci: So let’s start with the document artifact, right? Or the PRFAQ template. That’s how it’s called by some people. It’s six page long and it has three sections. The first section is the press release, which is the first page. The second section is the customer FAQs, which is the second page, and then you have four pages of internal FAQs. And the first two sections, the press release and the customer FAQs, you write as if the future is already here, right? You write in the present tense as if the product or the program or the business already exists. So you’re painting a picture of a future state that you wish it was true.

And the four internal FAQ pages, you write in the present tense with the knowledge that you have today, just like you would write any kind of business document, right? And you really describe several elements of the idea, which is the problem, the solution, the go-to-market, the risks, the mitigations, the feasibility aspects of this innovation. Like do you need some data? Do you need some APIs? Do you need some technology to be tested? The viability, which is the financial aspect, the cost, the operational, the maintenance, it’s all part of the viability. You also talk about the value, which is very important, right? Like you wanna create something that is a value for a customer and a value for your business. So you have to make sure that the two things are coming together nicely. It can’t be just something that is great for the customer, but terrible for the business, or great for the business and terrible for the customer. So that all gets included in the internal FAQ.

You have also an optional appendix. And in the appendix, you might include a few elements like financial modeling, wireframes, or a diagram or some user research that you’ve done. But you have to be very careful, because these things are magnets for discussions, right? And what you really want people discussing is the first six pages, which represents the vision and the strategy, not the tactics or the plan.

[00:19:05] The Six Page of PRFAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: So after you mentioned all of this, right, it seems like it covers a lot of ground, right? So in terms of, you know, the customer, the problem, right? The value, the feasibility, the financial aspect and things like that, right? Although there are main sections that are kind of like advocated, right? The PR, right, the press release. And then the customer FAQ, and then the internal FAQ with the optional appendix. So it seems like it covers a lot. Six page, how to fit all of them in, you know, such a, to me, such a short document for covering a lot of grounds.

Marcelo Calbucci: Yeah, six page is ideal, because it takes a person usually 20 minutes to read six pages. And what happens is if you have a one hour meeting, you can ask everyone to read the six pages during the first 20 minutes, and then you have 40 minutes to debate and to discuss and to decide. And that’s a very powerful formula. It’s a good combo. So if you do it shorter, you’re probably not gonna be able to capture everything that you want. If you do it longer, then you become sloppy, right? You might decide to include too much information. The six page put a constraint on what you write so that you’re really focusing on what matter for that conversation. What I say is the PRFAQ is the tool for you to decide if you should do a project or not. So it’s what you do before day one of the project, right? And for that to be a good conversation, you should not be talking about the details. You should be talking about the big picture. The details is once you start a project, when the project gets funding or green-lighted to go ahead and start, right?

And then you can do the full planning of the tactics and the dates and the roadmap and everything else. But the PRFAQ really should be focused on the high level elements of vision and strategy, and you focus on that. So you can fit that in six pages. It’s possible. I’ve done many times, I’ve seen many PRFAQs that do that. Sometimes it’s, it’s hard and then you have to decide what to cut, right? What is not important for us to be deciding right now that would not have an impact in our ability to decide or not to do this project.

Henry Suryawirawan: Right. Thanks for clarifying the emphasis, right, is actually to make decision, right? To do the, you know, decision making. So it should cover just the high level thing, not the super detailed stuff. Because otherwise six page won’t fit.

[00:21:24] Precise Writing

Henry Suryawirawan: And I think that’s another powerful thing that I also learned when reading the book, right? This thing called the precise writing. So for you to actually, you know, write in a short, concise manner, definitely there are techniques, right? So I think in your book you mentioned this thing called precise writing, which I think is kind of like the adopted way of writing in Amazon. So tell us, uh, what is precise writing? Because I really think this is one powerful thing that anyone can do in terms of improving their writing.

Marcelo Calbucci: Yes, I agree with you. It’s very important. It’s not only applicable to PRFAQ. Even if you write emails or Slack messages or PRDs or any other kind of document, you should be using precise writing, full stop. It’s that important. So what defines precise writing and what is not, right? So there is two other types of writing that you can imagine. One is that marketing, sales language way of writing. We are the best. We’re gonna build the fastest. And everything feels like very abstract, like not very specific. And when you read content like that, at the end, you feel like I think I understand, but I’m not sure if I understand or not. And like I’m not sure I believe it or not. So end up being in that world.

The other extreme is technical writing, right? So when you read those white papers and like explaining very details of the technology, but it misses the point of like the story of the user and how this is good for them and how they’re gonna interact with it and why this is gonna be valuable for the business as well. So precise writing is what happens in between, right? So you use the right elements of data with the right elements of storytelling. And you combine that in a way of writing that people can resonate with. They can understand what they’re talking about.

So in the book, for example, I give an example of solar panels. You can talk about solar panels in a very scientific way, right? The how many watts per hour they can generate per square meter of surface area depending on the latitude of the house, yada, yada. That’s very scientific, very specific and technical, right? Or you can write like solar panels are great for the environment and they are wonderful and everyone wants to buy one. And it’s like you go like, yeah, okay. Like help me make business decisions here, right? The precise running is in the middle is when you explain the impact of solar power in the livelihood of someone, right? How much money are they gonna save on their house? How much is gonna cost for them? How much en energy they can generate out of their monthly expense from solar powers? Like that’s, that’s the middle point, right?

And in the book, I have a whole chapter dedicated to precise writing so people can grasp what it is. The other aspect of precise writing that is very important is to make things clear. So you avoid abbreviations, the jargons. You explain concepts in simple terms. You make it concise, because very long sentences are very hard for people to read. So you eliminate all the redundancy on the sentences to make it really, really concise and clear for people to read.

Henry Suryawirawan: Yeah. So, I think people should learn about this precise writing, because just through the examples you mentioned in the book, right, you know, the paragraphs, the sentences, I can really see the power of, if people try to adopt it in their writing, it will be more powerful. So things like, yeah, remove fluffy words, uh, remove weak terms, those kind of stuff. And also use something that is more specific, like what you mentioned, right? Not something like, okay, this thing is the coolest thing ever. Like how cool, how do you describe the cool thing, right? So I think those kind of things definitely is part of the precise writing that should be adopted in PRFAQ, right?

[00:25:09] The Strict Guidelines of PRFAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: And the other thing is, I think because of all these so-called methodologies and maybe, I don’t know, like the way that you write the PRFAQ, right, it has to be following a certain, if not to say, strict guidelines. So why is such a strict way of writing the document, right? Is it something for consistency, standardization, or is it something else?

Marcelo Calbucci: Yeah, like you said, it’s for consistency, right? Because you are helping the reader. If your organization is gonna adopt PRFAQ, people are gonna feel more comfortable if from document to document it follows the same pattern, right? And the same style of writing. And that helps you consume the information faster. So you can imagine like someone that has an artifact on their organization that has a template at the top that describe, I don’t know, cost and timeline and everything. And like every document that they use has that template on the top. That makes it easier for anyone on that organization to see one of those documents and find exactly what they’re looking for. So part of the structure of the PRFAQ is to help you with that, right? Like how can I absorb the information correctly and fast so I can help provide feedback and make decisions?

Henry Suryawirawan: Totally makes sense, right. So I think standardization, because I’ve read so many documents as well, and if different authors write differently in a different kind of structure, I think it can be quite difficult to actually compare one against the other. That’s the first thing. And second thing is we always have to switch, you know, like the context in our mind, how to interpret a document that you read.

[00:26:40] PRFAQ: Press Release

Henry Suryawirawan: So I think, uh, it’s really powerful structure. So that’s why I think I understand why it has these three main sections. The PR, press release, the customer FAQ, and the internal FAQ. Let’s maybe dive into each of them, the press release. Are you referring press release, something like, you know, we see in all these TechCrunch blocks or maybe in the news, whenever people, you know, release something, they wanna do this press release. Is it actually the same?

Marcelo Calbucci: it is the same, but it’s not. So it is the same in the context that it should read like a press release that you would send to the press. However, on the PRFAQ, the press release has a very specific structure as well. It has seven paragraphs that you write in a very specific way. So it makes it easy for even someone who never wrote a PRFAQ, a press release to write a press release, and it tells the story starting from the problem, the solution includes some fictional quotes from the team and fictional quotes from the customer, includes an explanation of how to get started, includes an explanation or how it works. All very briefly, right? So what I say is the press release is to prime everyone reading the document on what’s to come. So when you start reading the rest of the document, you already in a state of mind that you say like, oh, I know what we are talking about. So you start evaluating each of the FAQ section in a better state.

The other thing that I was going to say about the press release is that is not a marketing tool. And I mentioned that in the beginning of the podcast. You never gonna send this to the press ever. It’s a confidential product document or a business document. So you keep within the organization so you are happy to write whatever you think it’s important to tell that story.

Henry Suryawirawan: Yeah, I think it’s important not to leak this, because otherwise people will think you are releasing something concrete, right? So what you mentioned about press release, right? As if like you’re sending it to the press, I think every time I read this press release, there’s the this definite structure that you just mentioned, right? So a company is releasing something, there’s a problem, right? And there are quotes as well. Why do you think that this kind of powerful structure, right? Like people are using it all the time to do press release. Why including all these aspects in a press release actually?

Marcelo Calbucci: To write the book, I spent some time studying press releases and where it came from and why it became so powerful. The interesting thing about press release is that it’s a standard document or a standard format adopted by the press and by comms team, marketing communication team within organizations so they can quickly share information with each other, right?

So if I wanna tell a story of a crisis, of a new product launch or a, a new hire in my organization, and I send a press release to a journalist, like I’m putting in a format that journalists know how to consume really quickly, because it’s gonna contain all the key informations that a journalist needs. So that’s why Amazon adopted as well. Why reinvented something that already was very powerful in a way to capture stories about a new product or a new business, or a change?

[00:29:56] The Power of Narratives / Storytelling

Henry Suryawirawan: Yeah. So indeed, it’s really powerful after I read it in your chapter, right? So I think why it all makes sense, uh, adopting press release kind of structured way of writing. And I think one key aspect about this PR is as well the narration, right? So the storytelling aspect of it. So tell us why we have to adopt storytelling narration instead of other, you know, descriptive manner, I guess?

Marcelo Calbucci: The storytelling helps with many aspects. One that we talk about is like to think clearly. Like it’s really hard for us to tell a story, if the story is not coherent. And if you’re gonna talk about a new product and you can’t tell a coherent story about your new product, it’s a strong signal there is something off here, right? More likely than not, it’s not that you are not a good storyteller, it’s that this product doesn’t have a good story. So you should go back to the drawing board and think like are we actually solving a real customer problem that we talk with customers and we really understand? Is our solution adequate to solve that problem? Because if you’re writing a story in the format of a press release and it doesn’t feel coherent, there is something off. So you need to look at it from that perspective, and as such, is a powerful tool to help you think and identify the gaps on what you’re trying to do, right? And that alone adds a lot of value to the PRFAQ. Creates a lot of value by the PRFAQ.

Henry Suryawirawan: So I think, yeah, very powerful. Storytelling format. I think it’s not just in writing PRFAQ. I think in your presentation, in explaining something to the people so that they can get the coherent aspect that you mentioned, right, or what you’re trying to convey. I think storytelling seems like everyone is adopting it. Movies, writing documents, books, whatever that is. I think it’s really powerful concept. So I think in a press release, we kind of like understand what should happen. I think the other aspect of press release that I find can be really useful is the, you know, building the vision, you know, trying to build the anticipation of, you know, releasing something, right? I think people can get excited just by reading press release. I think that’s one aspect that I feel can be very useful as well.

[00:32:03] PRFAQ: Customer FAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: So the other aspect, the next section is the customer FAQ. I think if I read press release, sometimes, it is not followed by FAQs in the typical press release. Why do we create this customers FAQ, which typically is mentioned in the website or somewhere, right? So why putting a customer FAQ as part of the document?

Marcelo Calbucci: The customer FAQ helps define the strategy that you’re going after, right? So you can imagine a customer FAQ is how much is this gonna cost? Can I import my data? Like where do I get started? And as you answer those questions, it’s useful for the team that’s gonna be involved in building it to understand what exactly we are building. Because pricing, for example, can affect the viability or the feasibility of a project. If we say like, this product is gonna be free to our users, like everyone is gonna think differently than it’s gonna cost $3 a month. And even the fact that you say it’s gonna cost $2 a month, immediately you’re gonna get your engineering team and your UX team and your product team thinking about, all right, so you need to have billing, so you need to accept credit card or payment, so you need to build this whole thing. So it’s helping inform people on elements of this strategy and how they need to think about this new project, this new initiative.

Henry Suryawirawan: So when you paint this, uh, FAQ, right, do you actually involve real potential customers? Or is it like the owner of the initiatives place? The customers’ head. Is there a better way of coming up with these FAQs?

Marcelo Calbucci: You will involve the customers in the sense that you should be talking to them. They’re not gonna be reading the document. You might not even be telling them exactly what you’re doing. But you need to learn from them about their problem, about how they’re solving today, about how they found the solution today. What it would take for them to move from one solution to another solution. What is not satisfying them about how they’re solving it today. There’s many things there that I’m not gonna elaborate everything here. The book includes a lot of that. So that is the extent that you talk with customers. They should not be reading your PRFAQ the same way customers should not be reading your PRDs or any other confidential document within the organization.

[00:34:15] Jobs-to-Be-Done vs. Personas

Henry Suryawirawan: Yeah. So typically in the product world, right, people use these persona or jobs-to-be-done. In your book, you actually mentioned that you prefer using jobs-to-be-done framework instead of using personas. So maybe briefly tell us why is the case?

Marcelo Calbucci: Yeah. This is a, this is a longer conversation. We would need a whole podcast about this, right? Uh, but personas was invented maybe 40 or 50 years ago, uh, I don’t know how long ago. And it was mostly a marketing tool, right. So you could understand how to create campaigns that target certain traits of a person, right? Like a married man or like a child who lives in this neighborhood. And slowly personas made it their way into product, right? Because we had no other tools of doing things. So it’s not unusual for UX teams, for product managers to establish some personas for the product they’re building. And then from there, trying to define the features they’re gonna build.

I think that’s backwards, right? The best approach, and by the way, this is what jobs-to-be-done has been discussed by Clayton Christensen and Tony Ulwick and many people who wrote books about jobs-to-be-done. There was excellent books out there, which is, it doesn’t matter who your customer is. What matters is what they’re trying to do, right. If you’re trying to hang a frame to the wall, just to give a very typical example, like it doesn’t matter any of the other elements of and attributes of your life. What we care is you’re trying to hang a frame to the wall. Can we solve the problem with a drill, uh, and hooks or with stick tapes or whatever, right?

So if your product is about that, you’re defining the jobs-to-be-done, which is what the customer is trying to do, and the solution that you’re gonna provide to that. And the framework is wonderful. I really think it’s great. It’s fantastic. It doesn’t address everything. You know, there is some gaps there around desirability. For some products, it’s a little bit harder to be very clear on how use jobs-to-be-done. But in general, I think it’s a much better place for product teams that are considering creating something new to start from, or programs or services or businesses.

Henry Suryawirawan: Right. Thanks for clarifying that. So I think we can move to the next section, right? So again, just to recap, customer focused FAQ, right? Maybe it’s like six, eight FAQs that you include there. It’s something that a hypothetical customer would ask if they read your press release, right? So the first press release and customer FAQ, they’re kind of like integrated. And both are kind of like future, forward looking, right?

[00:36:46] PRFAQ: Internal FAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: The next section is internal FAQs. And you mentioned this is not necessarily forward looking. So tell us why, what is this internal-only FAQ, I mean the, the main subject itself is kind of like weird, right. Why you built an FAQ for internal teams?

Marcelo Calbucci: Yeah, so the internal FAQ is the most important part of the PRFAQ. And actually when you start writing your PRFAQ, you start from the internal FAQ. You don’t start from the press release and customer FAQ. You start from the internal FAQ first. So it’s kind of odd, because you start from the internal FAQ first, then you write your customer FAQs. Then last you write the press release. But of course, you read it from top to bottom when you are providing feedback to someone else’s PRFAQ. The internal FAQ is a way to explain strategy in terms of the feasibility, the viability, the usability, and the value that you are creating. So you are answering questions for the team as if the questions were being asked by the team. That’s why it’s called internal FAQ.

So you can imagine like maybe your manager comes to you and is like what problem are we trying to solve? Well, that’s a great question to include on the internal FAQ. So, and actually it’s my, my recommended first question that people should answer. Like what problem are we trying to solve? And then you answer like this is the problem that we are trying to solve. You don’t talk about the solution, you talk about the customer problem. Like customers are trying to hang frames to the wall. That’s the problem that we’re trying to solve. So you focus on that. And then you include several questions. It can be anywhere from 12 to 18 to 20 questions that help people understand all these elements, right? Like what, are we trying to do? Why we are trying to do? What is the problem? What is the solution? How customers are gonna find it? What have we done so far? How do we know this is true? Like all those kind of questions. And in the book, I have more than 60 questions that people can pick and choose from.

And of course, at the end of the day, you’re gonna have to adapt to your needs, right? There’s gonna be things that are very specific to your organization. So it could be that you’re replacing an existing solution within your organization already. So you might need to have an internal FAQ to explain like how we’re gonna replace and migrate the data from X to Z, right? You don’t need to go into the details, but you need to say like, the team has evaluated this solution and has tested the ability to do this and we’re gonna use this tool or framework or technology to do that. That’s enough for the strategy conversation. So that’s what the internal FAQ includes.

Henry Suryawirawan: Right. Very interesting you mentioned that we should start by writing the internal FAQ first, followed by customer FAQ, and the last is press release, right? So I think, uh, I can understand why it is powerful to start with internal FAQ first.

[00:39:34] How to Come Up with the Internal FAQs

Henry Suryawirawan: I think similar kind of question like, how do you come up with the questions, right? Do you involve the different various teams, maybe the leaders from those teams to actually come and maybe ask the questions itself upfront so that the owner of the initiative can come up with the answer? Or is there any other way of writing the internal FAQs?

Marcelo Calbucci: Yeah, the easiest way is probably to read the book and pick the questions from my, my book, right? But independent of that, you are right. Like as you review this document with some people, they’re gonna ask you new questions that are very strategically important that you haven’t included. Some are gonna be tactical, right? They’re gonna ask you about like, hey, are we gonna use this cloud provider or that cloud provider? That is tactful. You don’t need to include that. Unless it is not tactical, it’s strategic in the sense that that decision is gonna have implications for the partnerships the organization has. So that is strategic, not tactical. So as people ask you certain questions, you have to make a judgment, is this relevant for us to make a decision or can we talk about that later? If it is, like we can talk about that later after we make a decision, you don’t include it. If it is important to make a decision, you include it. So that’s how you come up with newer questions that you can add to the internal FAQs.

[00:40:49] The Level of Details in the FAQs

Henry Suryawirawan: Right. The strategic aspect part I think is really interesting, right? Because, if for example, we are building, I don’t know, like a technical products. How much level of technical details should be included? Or if, let’s say it’s a project about, I don’t know, migrating something, right? Again, how much level of the, you know, technical details and steps that we need to include, right? And maybe marketing strategies, how much, you know, details in terms of campaign. So I think sometimes it can be really difficult to actually understand about those kind of projects without actually knowing the level of details. So how should you balance these details with the strategic and concise manner of the FAQs?

Marcelo Calbucci: So it depends on what you’re using the PRFAQ for, right. PRFAQ is for any kind of innovation. So it could be for a new product, new feature. But also it could be for internal services and tools. And that can mean both like IT and HR and finance and legal who need to change a process or change a vendor or change a tool that they use. Or implement a new tool for themselves. But also like platform teams and core technology teams and other teams that are building like infrastructure tools for other engineering teams to use.

So in that case, what an engineering team can do is to imagine the other team as their customer. So they write the PRFAQ in a funny way, it reads funny. And by the way, it doesn’t have to be a press release. On that case, could be an email or a blog post announcing the new infrastructure. So let’s say you are moving from one database technology to another database technology. So the announcement itself is now we are making available for the front end engineering teams to access the data from this new database that we are using. I even include an example like that on my book about how to use for internal tech projects.

And on that case, the customer FAQs are employees of the organization. So the customers are employees of the organization. So you don’t need the customer FAQs, you can just like get rid of that section, right? Like everything is an internal FAQ. Because your customer is part of your team so you can share that information directly with them. And on that case, how you define strategy is likely different, right? It is more about the interfaces and the contracts that are gonna be exposing to other teams versus the customer product that we’re building for an external customer.

[00:43:20] PRFAQ: Appendix

Henry Suryawirawan: Thanks for clarifying that. So I think we have covered the three sections. The last section is the optional one, which is Appendix. One thing that I find really interesting, you mentioned that we can put Appendix as optional, but you should not expect people to read it or dig deeper into it. So maybe tell us any reason this kind of specificity about Appendix.

Marcelo Calbucci: Depending on the size of the project that you are working on, you know, it might involve a lot of functions in your organization. So you might have marketing and sales and UX and product management and engineering and machine learning teams and everything else that you can imagine. Like every, every other function under the sun. So sometimes it’s good to have some elements that is a little bit deeper. So this function can comment on it.

So let’s talk about finance, for example. You might be reviewing your PRFAQ with the finance team. They wanna know like how much this is gonna cost, what is the revenue, what kind of modeling have you done. If you include that in the first six pages, it’s gonna be a lot. And it’s gonna be really hard for the other people to extract the value that they need from it. So you might include a page of financial modeling on the Appendix, right? And then when you are reviewing the PRFAQ with the finance team, you say, read the PFAQ and read Appendix C that has a financial model, right? And then they gonna be able to read the entire strategy and vision, but go one level deeper on what matters to them.

Same thing for engineering, for UX, for product, for other elements. So you might include diagrams of an architecture, if that’s really important to include to make a strategic decision again. You might include some mocks and wireframes of what you consider to be building so that it helps the UX team understand what’s going on. Or even the UX, the results of UX research that has been done so far.

Henry Suryawirawan: Right. I think we have the full picture now about PRFAQ. Thanks for painting it in such a detailed manner, right? So I think some people might be really interested in adopting this, right?

[00:45:27] Advice on Starting PRFAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: So I think maybe we should advise people how to get started, right? So is there a way that people can start? Maybe there are some examples that you know are publicly available that we can follow. Is there any more contents maybe from you that we can follow in terms of, you know, trying to learn and practice the PRFAQ?

Marcelo Calbucci: Absolutely. Yes. Actually, if you go to my website. And you can go to Google and search for PRFAQ book and you’re gonna find the book website. I actually put a few examples there so people can read this. And that’s where I recommend people get started, right? Read a few PRFAQ so you understand what the thing is about. And then on the website, I have lots of resources, including templates for people to download and try to practice the PRFAQ or even buy the book and read it.

[00:46:11] Adapting from the Amazon’s PRFAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: Right. One aspect when we try to adopt best practices from other companies or big tech giants, right, is the importance of context. Do you think this PRFAQ will work outside of Amazon? And if so, what is the most important thing that actually affects the success of PRFAQ adoption?

Marcelo Calbucci: So my book is an adaptation of Amazon’s PRFAQ. The way Amazon does PRFAQ is slightly different than what I described in the book. Because Amazon is a very resourceful organization. It has a lot of money, it has a lot of people, it has a lot of time to make like really big decisions that only gonna have an impact two years from now. Most organizations don’t have that kind of resource or that timeline or that mindset. So the reason I adapted the Amazon way is so that anyone could do a PRFAQ in one or two weeks, which is a reasonable amount of time if you’re gonna invest three months, six months, or 12 months in a project, right?

And I do think it’s very useful for, even if you’re just a single person, right? Like you are a solo entrepreneur or solo founder. The PRFAQ helps you give you clarity as you think about, as you’re writing, and then find the gaps on your knowledge and your critical thinking. The PRFAQ is gonna force you to like, get clarity on it and learn how to articulate it better. So people ask me like, hey, should I, should founders use PRFAQ to, to get investors? And I say it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you write your PRFAQ. And by the act of writing the PRFAQ, even if you use a presentation later, you’re gonna be much better at articulating your vision and your story in a way that’s gonna resonate with investors. So it works on that setting, but it also works in any big company.

My only recommendation is that people don’t start PRFAQ with a very big project. If it is the first one that you’re doing, you know, pick a small project with a reasonable number of people. Maybe five or 10 people in the organization. Tell everyone this is an experiment, that you’re gonna give it a try. I pretty much guarantee that the first time you try is gonna be wrong. So try again and try again. No one like gets it right the first time. It doesn’t matter if you use PRFAQs or OKRs or PRDs or any other framework. Like it takes some time for you to learn it. So use it three, four times before you really understand what’s going on and feel like comfortable using it.

Henry Suryawirawan: Yeah. And one aspect that is really important is the writing skills, right? So again, this is a written narrative document, right? So you should also improve in terms of writing skills. And also the culture in the team or organization should be, you know, valuing written artifacts rather than, you know, just the presentation slides. So I think that’s also important.

[00:48:55] Common Mistakes when Adopting PRFAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: So you mentioned that people will make mistakes adopting this framework in the very beginning. What are some of the common mistakes or antipatterns that you see people, uh, you know, start whenever they adopting PRFAQ?

Marcelo Calbucci: The first one is really being too tactical in your PRFAQ and including a plan and roadmaps and detail, feature lists, and lots of wire frames. Like don’t go there, right? Like PRFAQs are about strategy and vision. Stay on that realm for as long as you can so everyone can be aligned on the desired outcome that the team is going after. That’s number one.

Number two mistake is people’s, it’s kind of silly, but people think of PRFAQ as a what do you do at the end of a project, right? So you’re gonna be ready to announce. So you write the press release, you write the FAQs, and then you announce it. Like, no. It’s not for that, it’s for the decision. It’s for early on. So these are very, two very common mistakes that I see happening.

Henry Suryawirawan: Yeah, I can really understand the last one, right? People think it’s about announcing the product, right? But actually it should be used for decision making before you actually, decide to embark on, you know, the thing that you are planning for in the PRFAQ.

[00:50:05] Providing Good Feedback for PRFAQ

Henry Suryawirawan: So we have covered a lot of things, um, is there anything that you think we should also cover today, but I haven’t really asked. So is there anything from you, Marcelo?

Marcelo Calbucci: Uh, the one thing I would say is to use a PRFAQ effectively in your organization, the people reading the PRFAQ also need to learn how to provide good feedback. And I even have a free chapter that people can download from their website as well of how to provide feedback. Because if you’re not being effective in providing feedback, you are reducing the value of the PRFAQ. Because PRFAQ is a collaboration mechanism. And you want everyone to understand their role as they provide feedback.

Henry Suryawirawan: Right. I think that’s a very important, right, if people read but no feedback given, right? I think there’ll be less powerful aspect of this. And as you mentioned, it’s the collaboration aspect, right? So that’s why we include things like the customer FAQ, the internal FAQ. That is actually to cover, you know, different perspectives so that your idea gets more powerful, right? And you can get the buy-in from various different parts of the organization.

So Marcelo, really love the conversation. Really appreciate the book that you write, the PRFAQ Framework, right?

[00:51:18] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

Henry Suryawirawan: So as we reach the end of our conversation, I have one last question for you today. A question that I call the three technical leadership wisdom. So think of it just like advice that you wanna give to us the listeners here. Maybe if you can share your version of the wisdom.

Marcelo Calbucci: Yeah, I’ll… I’ll share that, the first wisdom is fall in love with the problem, not the solution. There are multiple solutions to a problem and once you really understand the problem, um, you’re gonna be able to provide better solutions for it. And that applies to everything, right? Not only customer problems, but internal problems as well.

The second one is remember that everything that we do is with and about people. Your customers are people, your team members are people, your vendors are people. So if you understand behavior science and intercommunication and interpersonal skills, you can really advance, you know, your initiatives.

The third one is really people need to learn how to articulate their thoughts more clearly. Because if you have a good idea or if you have good intentions, but you don’t know how to explain them well, it’s really hard for other people to support you and to rally behind you.

Henry Suryawirawan: Wow. That’s really powerful, right? Because I, I really can vouch. So many bright people, right? Bright ideas, but not able to articulate their vision, you know, their ideas better to other people, right? Unless it’s a solo project where you can do it maybe all by yourself. But I think most of the big impact projects, you require other people to work with, right? So I think thanks for mentioning that.

So Marcelo, if people would love to, you know, follow up with you, ask you questions, or maybe go to your resources, maybe is there a place where they can find you online?

Marcelo Calbucci: The easiest way is to go to Google, search for PRFAQ book, find the book website. The author page has all my contact information, including my email address.

Henry Suryawirawan: Thanks so much. I’ll put that in show notes. So thanks again for your time today, Marcelo.

Marcelo Calbucci: Thank you, Henry.

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