Your Road to
PRODUCT ROADMAP
We don’t start a family vacation by getting in a car and driving !
we start by deciding where we want to go( Goal )and determining if we should drive, fly, or maybe take a cruise( Strategies ). We have a conversation about what kind of vacation we can afford and get inputs from the kids on where they would like to go. We then pull all this together into a plan with a clear destination, a way to get there and a price we are willing to pay for the experience.
Cambridge Dictionary defines “Road- map” as
“ a plan for how to achieve something”
Definition of a Product Roadmap
Product roadmaps provide a high-level visual summary that maps out the vision and direction of a product offerings over time — conveying the strategic why and what behind what you’re building.A product Roadmap guides the direction of a product over time. It’s both a high-level summary and a strategic document that communicates what teams are building and why, with a clear strategic plan for execution.
Purpose of a Product Roadmap
Broadly speaking, a product roadmap serves several purposes:
✔ The key role of a product roadmap is to communicate strategy.
✔ It maps out the vision and strategic goals, presented in a visual way
✔ Details how to deliver against the vision and strategy over the time-frame.
✔ Communicates the necessary information to align stakeholders
✔ Sets the priorities so that one can focus on what’s important.
Why can’t I just use a product backlog in place of a product roadmap?
The product roadmap communicates why you’re building something and its customer value as well as a little bit of the what that’s being built, with a predicted and planned time-frame.
In comparison, a product backlog is almost entirely what you’re building to accomplish your product team’s vision.
Who owns the product roadmap?
The product manager/PO owns the product roadmap! Not your executives, engineering, marketing or your sales reps.
As a PM/PO, you’re responsible for making sure that these stakeholders are bought into your plan and understand the trade offs made to generate the most customer and market value. However, even with stakeholder feedback, the PM/PO is fully responsible for going forward and making sure they’re accountable to fulfill the vision.
Product Roadmap Contents: What Should You Include?
Product vision — what you want your product to become in the future.
Strategy — an execution plan detailing what your company is going to do to meet the vision.
Goal — a time-bound objective that can be measured by a specific metric.
Initiative — broad themes that unite features that must be implemented to achieve a goal.
Feature — an actual piece of a product that’s either part of functionality or a third-party application.
Time-frames — dates or time periods for a certain goal or feature to be finished. As a rule, a product roadmap suggests only an approximation.
Status markers — used to track the progress of work.
Product Roadmap types
- Strategy & Market Roadmap — deals mainly with high-level details and market state.
- Visionary Roadmap — outlines the vision of a product instead.
- Technology Roadmap — a complete opposite of the previous two, a low-level technical roadmap for the production team.
- Technology Across Product Roadmap — the mix between actual technologies/features planned for product/products.
- Platform Roadmap — aimed at multiplatform digital products.
- Internal & External Product Roadmap — tied to different types of audience.
Types of audience for a product roadmap
Like a product, a roadmap has its target audience. Different groups of people are connected with the product, so you want to communicate with precision different information to those groups. The audience factor will tell you the type of content to include, the content form, and how detailed it should be. So, as a product manager you may either create multiple roadmaps for each group of people or build a single, strategic document for everyone (which is a rare case). Let’s look at the audience types your roadmap can be made for.
Best Practices for Creating an Effective Product Roadmap
Best Practice #1: Present a Visual Product Roadmap.
Your roadmap should be easy to understand and persuasive. PowerPoint and spreadsheets are widely used, but there are also many popular software options that make it easier to create visually compelling product roadmaps. For these reasons, many PMs prefer flexible task management tools like AHA, Trello, Jira, or Asana.
Best Practice #2: Have Different Versions of Your Product Roadmap.
To executives, the roadmap validates your product’s usefulness to a market that aligns with the organization’s strategic direction, and also proves that it enhances the company’s position. To your development team, your roadmap demonstrates progress and fosters inspiration. And to other internal departments — sales and marketing — your product roadmap sets expectations about product benefits, its comparisons to other similar products, and the potential for conversions.
Best Practice #3: Share Your Product Roadmap.
A roadmap shouldn’t be considered complete unless and until it has been socialized and discussed with the broader team so that they have clarity on what their roles are and what their efforts will create. This includes all stakeholders including what is often the core product team of product owner(s), design, engineers but also including the broader team of QA, customer success, sales, senior leadership, strategic vendors/partners, and other product teams. Importantly, it also should include your customers and the market. After all, they are the ones who will need and want to know what value will be coming their way. Remember, at its core, a roadmap is a strategic communication artifact that is focused on the big picture and conveys the path you’ll take to fulfill your product vision.
Best Practice #4: Create a Flexible Roadmap
Best Practice #5: Involve Your Stakeholder Community in Regular Intervals
Best Practice #5 Keep it fresh
A roadmap is not a static document. When conditions in the environment/market change, so too must your roadmap change in order to survive and remain relevant. It’s one of the biggest reasons roadmaps fail (and why so many product managers despise them) — when product teams publish a roadmap and consider it done.
One thing is for sure — your roadmap will be out-of-date almost as soon as it’s published. So take care to constantly evaluate it against your market and your customers’ needs over time.
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