Crafting a Product Roadmap
/Introduction
Congrats, you have performed thorough research, and developed a robust feature list. Now it is time to move onto the next step in the product development phase - creating a product roadmap. The roadmap serves as a strategic guide that communicates the what, why, and how of the product you are building. The roadmap helps align stakeholders, and its creation is an art that blends strategy, planning, feedback, and execution.
To streamline this complex task, it can be broken down into four key efforts:
Strategic Alignment: Understand the broader vision and ensure the proposed features align with overarching strategies and objectives.
Planning and Decomposition: Detail the features and establish a rough timeline.
Feedback and Iteration: Refine and optimize the roadmap based on feedback from stakeholders.
Execution and Review: Actually implement the plan. Remain receptive to feedback, adjust path as needed, while staying consistent to project goals.
Strategic Alignment
The objective of this phase is to lay the foundational groundwork by understanding the broader vision and ensuring that the proposed features align with overarching strategies and objectives. This phase is not just about individual features but how they fit into the larger picture. You must remember to connect with the company's mission, the target audience, and the market landscape. Maintaining alignment with stakeholders will help in preventing corrections later in the process.
Activities
You will do the following things during this phase:
Clarify the long-term product vision and immediate objectives.
Validate the connection between prioritized features and the larger business goals.
Initiate discussions with key stakeholders, to maintain alignment and set expectations.
Planning and Decomposition
In the previous step, you established the 'why' and the 'what' of our product. Now, you will begin to answer the 'how' question. You will begin to develop actionable tasks to bridge strategy and execution. You will determine dependencies, and start to get a rough idea of timelines as you lay the groundwork for an executable plan.
Activities
You will do the following things during this phase:
Segment larger features into smaller actionable user stories.
Determine the relationships and dependencies between different features.
Engage with the technical and design teams to estimate timelines.
Begin drafting an initial roadmap.
Feedback and Iteration
You will need to validate the plan you are developing with external experts and stakeholders. This is important to bring in diverse perspectives uncover blind spots and ensure the roadmap resonates with stakeholders. Iterating on the plan helps create a roadmap that is not a top-down directive, but is a collaborative plan, with buy-in from all effected resources.
Activities
You will do the following things during this phase:
Circulate the draft roadmap among internal teams.
Collect feedback, especially focusing on potential challenges or oversights.
Iterate on the roadmap, ensuring that it’s both ambitious and realistic.
Lock in the roadmap with clear milestones.
Execution and Review
At this point we will execute on the clear plan we created. We will need to constantly monitor the effort, in case recalibration or a shift in direction is necessary. This phase is about agility, ensuring that while the vision remains steady, the path can be adjusted based on real-world feedback and changing scenarios.
Activities
You will do the following things during this phase:
Start the development process based on the roadmap.
Monitor progress continuously, ensuring alignment with milestones.
Gather feedback post feature releases, and be ready to pivot if necessary.
Periodically review and adjust the roadmap based on new insights or market changes.
Celebrate successes, learn from missteps, and recognize the team's efforts.
Resources
There are a variety of resources that are helpful during this phase. I wanted to share some important resources that the reader can study independently.
TOOLS
Bubble - no code platform for developing applications
Webflow - Visual code editor that generates JS and HTML code
Articles and training
Free Scrum Series - really excellent series of videos with simple and great advice for running Agile teams.
Conclusion
A well-structured product roadmap provides direction and also serves as a living document that evolves with the product's life cycle. By diligently following the tasks outlined in this article, product managers can ensure they craft a roadmap that is both strategic and flexible. Such a roadmap becomes a beacon, guiding teams through the complexities of product development, ensuring that efforts are aligned with objectives, and helping deliver products that resonate with users and stakeholders alike.
Thanks for reading this series, I hope this is helpful. Your feedback is welcome.