Product Planning — Capstone: First AI Product (Chapter 2)

Product planning transforms an idea into a actionable roadmap. This chapter covers the techniques and documents you need to turn a concept into a buildable plan. Skipping this step is the most common reason capstone projects stall—they begin without direction and accumulate features until they collapse under their own weight.

Writing a Product Brief

A product brief distills your concept into a document you can share, review, and reference. It includes the problem statement, target user, proposed solution, success metrics, and constraints. Keep it to one page. If you cannot explain the product in one page, you do not understand it well enough to build it.

Example brief structure:

# Product Brief: LocalDoc

## Problem
Developers spend 30+ minutes daily searching through local documentation files 
across multiple formats and directories.

## Target User
Software developers working with legacy codebases or multiple programming 
languages who need fast local search without internet connectivity.

## Solution
A command-line tool that indexes documentation files and provides instant 
search with AI-powered relevance ranking.

## Success Metrics
- Search results return within 2 seconds
- Accuracy rated "useful" by 80%+ of test users
- Works offline on documents up to 500MB

## Constraints
- Must run on Linux, macOS, and Windows
- Single binary distribution preferred
- No external API dependencies

Prioritization Frameworks

Once you have a brief, you need to decide what to build first. The MoSCoW method (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have) helps categorize features by importance. For your MVP, focus exclusively on Must haves. Everything else is scope creep that delays shipping.

The effort-versus-impact matrix helps evaluate features within each category. Build high-impact, low-effort features first. Defer high-effort features regardless of impact until you have validated core functionality.

Setting Milestones

Break your project into milestones of 1-2 weeks each. Each milestone should produce something testable. This creates natural checkpoints where you can evaluate progress and adjust direction.

A typical capstone timeline:

Week 1-2: Planning and research
Week 3-4: Architecture and core implementation
Week 5-6: Frontend and integration
Week 7-8: Testing, documentation, and deployment

This gives you an 8-week timeline from concept to launch, which is ambitious but achievable for a focused MVP.

Risk Assessment

Identify the highest-risk parts of your project early. These are typically areas where you have limited experience or where external dependencies create uncertainty. Plan extra time for these areas and consider prototyping them first to reduce surprises.