What makes a good product roadmap




















This helps them formulate the "how" of implementation. The marketing team will need to know the detailed strategy, goals, and vision — with more emphasis on the overall benefits to customers by releases and features.

The sales team will be interested in what functionality customers are going to receive, when, and why they should care about it. The customer support team will need to be aware of the critical features or enhancements you are planning to deliver and when.

Successful product roadmap presentations tell a cohesive story about the direction of your product. Depending on how quickly your team moves, you might present your product roadmap monthly, quarterly, or annually. As noted above, the audience for your product roadmap presentation will vary — you may be presenting to executives, internal teams, partners, or customers.

But no matter who you are sharing your product plans with, the overall goal of your presentation is to inform people where your product is going and how it will get there.

You want to make sure that everyone understands what you are going to deliver and why. Besides sharing the actual roadmap, you can explain how the plan maps to the company strategy, how it will delight customers, and how it will differentiate the company from competitors. You will also want to give your audience the opportunity to ask questions and share comments. Whether it is positive or negative, feedback is invaluable for refining and improving your roadmap.

There are a variety of roadmapping tools and templates available. You may want to get started with free Excel and PowerPoint roadmap templates , which help you organize your research and save time. But templates like these are typically lightweight and limited in their capabilities. This is why many product teams use purpose-built roadmap software like Aha!

You can define your strategy, manage ideas, build visual roadmaps, and analyze results all in one place. You can also collaborate with colleagues and share your plans in real time.

No matter what approach you choose, the recommendations in this section of the product management guide will give you a solid framework for building, sharing, and maintaining your product roadmap.

Product management Product roadmaps Overview. Introduction to product roadmaps You have a bold vision for your product. What is a product roadmap? Why is roadmapping important? How to build a product roadmap Before building your product roadmap , you must know the business goals that your efforts will support and define the initiatives you will invest in to support those objectives.

Here are the five main steps to building a roadmap: Step 1: Define the strategy Strategy is the "why" of what you will build. Portfolio roadmap A portfolio roadmap shows the planned releases across multiple products in a single view. Strategy roadmap A strategy roadmap displays the initiatives or high-level efforts that the team needs to invest in to achieve the product goals.

Releases roadmap A releases roadmap communicates the activities that must happen before you can bring the release to market — what needs to be done, when, and who is responsible for delivery. Features roadmap A features roadmap shows the timeline for when new features will be delivered. Product management. Introduction to product management What is a product? Roles and responsibilities. What is the role of a product manager? How are product teams structured? Which tools do product managers use?

What skills are required to be a product manager How do product managers work with other teams? How do product managers work with engineers? What are some product management job titles? What does a product manager do each day? Career growth. How can I learn to be a product manager? What are some tips for new product managers? How do I choose the best product management certification?

What are some interview questions for product managers? What is a typical product manager salary? Product strategy. Introduction to product strategy What is product differentiation? What is customer experience? What is product analytics? What is product vision?

What are some examples of a business model? What is product positioning? How should I price my product? How should product managers define customer personas?

How should product managers research competitors? What are product goals and initiatives? How to set product goals? How to set product initiatives?

What is enterprise transformation? What is digital transformation? What are the types of business transformation? What is the role of product management in enterprise transformation? Product plans. Introduction to product plans What is a strategic product planning process? They know how your end-users feel about current products, what they are looking for, and any feature requests. This helps you determine the features that need to be prioritized with future product releases.

Engage with those who already use your products by reaching out to user experts. After these two groups, use your personal experiences. This is the strategy that outlines how your business is going to make sure the vision for the product is met. It is the way the plan is going to be executed as the project moves forward. Prioritize and set specific goals on this timeline.

It needs to be broad so you can still have innovation and flexibility but there does need to be some general time goals. Plot initiatives on achievable timelines quarterly or monthly. General dates are helpful but do not write them in stone. These are important when it comes to keeping everyone in the loop about timing. While you might not have exact dates, knowing where the markers are to track the progress of the work is essential to keep moving forward. Markers can be adjusted as needed but showing where they are set allows people to check on timelines when they need to.

Make sure all teams know what the metrics are and that everyone is measuring things in the same way. Everyone needs to be talking in the same language so there is no question around what is being measured. Your product map needs to include all the internal teams who are going to be part of the project. You want their support during development so you need them to buy into your roadmap. The product roadmap should also meet their interests, not just the interest of your team. Make sure to include the following:.

This is all part of one roadmap so use roadmapping tools that let you highlight info for each team but on the same timeline. This gets everyone engaged and helps in getting upper management to agree with a go-ahead. It shows all the progress you have made in the planning process and what your next steps are. Sharing makes sure everyone is aware of the plan and that the teams have accountability and are kept up to date.

Focus on the goals and getting buy-in on those first. Next, work with your team to identify the three features that will get you to your goal for this release. Its really helpful for me. Thanks for sharing keep up the good work. Your blogs are always helpful and who are managing the agile projects, they can get useful tips after reading this article. Thanks for sharing this useful info.

Hi Roman, Thank you for sharing your knowledge of Agile product management! I learned a lot from your books Strategize and your blogs. Thank you for your feedback and question. I think the hardest part of product management is getting buy-in, and creating alignment to go from vision to execution via the feature roadmap.

Thank you for your feedback Steve. Great to hear that you find it helpful to align people through shared goals. Number 8 is so important — thanks for mentioning that! One question if I may. Our current roadmap also has the development time blocked out to show when the team is working on a feature — does this need to be included or should the roadmap just show targeted release?

Thanks for your feedback and question Simon. I would be hesitant to show when a feature will be developed on a product roadmap. A release plan is better suited to do this if required. Very good post. Very insightful! Thank you for this article. I especially like the part about creating a story about the product. Great article. Very helpful and simplistic way to break down some of the challenging pieces of managing products in an Agile environment. I am trying to find ways to start a new product.

Another post just for this step would be great. Just a little feedback. Answered a lot of questions that I had from watching the video; many thanks. Looking forward to using the GO roadmap for new proects going forward. The bosses finally get it and the development team has a well defined sense of direction. Thanks for your kind feedback, Hodmi. The following picture illustrates this approach. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Don't subscribe All Replies to my comments Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting. Learn More You can learn more about agile product roadmaps with the following:. Roman's Book Strategize Buy the Book. February 3, at Roman Pichler says:. February 4, at Logan Torres says:. November 30, at Shreya Shinde says:. November 27, at Wei Zhu says:. May 22, at May 23, at Steve Forbes says:. April 24, at Jessie Beck says:. March 10, at



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