Using ‘Themes’ in Your Modern Product Management Roadmap
Good product managers use just-in-time elaboration to delay decision making until the last responsible moment. This saves time and ensures that judgements are made with the latest learnings/context. But what happens when you’re roadmapping and need stakeholder approval on the next few months of priority? Feature-specific roadmaps can get you into trouble: tactical solutions instead of strategic focus, shiny objects, over-communicating when enhancements are delayed, etc. Then you’re just pitching features (output) and not performance (outcome). We use themes to safeguard our autonomy and drive priority within the business at the same time.
What is a theme?
A theme is a placeholder for well-defined strategy, focused on outcomes driven by an aspect of your product. If time is money then themes are a great way to drive priority and get your team and stakeholders into an investment mindset.
Stakeholders
Themes focused on one or two KPIs give stakeholders the ability to think/invest for outcomes, not simply be sold (or sell you) on shiny objects. Themes can be especially helpful when your team lacks organizational maturity. Priorities can shift quickly. Themes reduce stress on the Product team when shifts occur, and they enable fluidity without risking months of work. When priorities shift you’re simply swapping out one theme for another.
Your team
Themes provide a guardrail as your team collaborates on tactics to lift KPI(s). Themes are timeboxes (usually measured in months) that drive scope and tactical priority.
Anatomy of a Theme
Themes in context
Themes encourage commitment to outcomes and show teams how their work rolls up to the business’ goals.
Your Roadmap
Themes make it easy to move items on your roadmap in organizations where priorities change quickly. Themes are also the cover for autonomy and just-in-time decision making within the team.
Elaboration should be done on the next theme only a couple weeks before you begin (that’s the just-in-time part). Start to assess opportunity within the theme and discover tactics to accomplish the strategy. Involve stakeholders in this process and generate as many ideas as possible (great place for a Design Sprint). Reduce the group to your core team to discover the best opportunities that fit within the scope of investment (theme). Timeboxing themes helps your team get better at estimation. T-shirt size your tactics to prioritize them within your theme, then manage expectations if you need to cut for time.
Tips
Keep the number of themes you have to 5–7. Moving from one theme to the next allows for time to gather data. When you return to a theme, assess previous work for re-investment/sunset/new product development.
Thematic Roadmapping is a work in progress. Have you tried it or something similar? Comment to share your thoughts and please tap that ♥ to recommend.
