Step 4/5 of Product Development — Creating a Roadmap
We’ve identified the need, target audience, and solution, and conducted market research & feasibility within steps 1, 2, and 3. Following all these efforts, we will now create the roadmap for the product.
While detailing the roadmap may not be easy, here we will define the product’s vision. Similarly, we will set the milestones and goals that the product will reach.
Setting Milestones
It is crucial to specify which features of the product will be implemented in what order and when. When defining milestones, there are some criteria to be considered.
1. Time to market
Delivering the right product to the customer at the right time is critical to a product’s success.
For example, spending more time to deliver a better product but delivering it late may result in competitors seizing the market during this time. On the other hand, launching the product early with missing features that have a huge effect on customers’ needs can fail after release.
2. Costs
In the way of bringing a product to life, we need various resources such as investment costs and human resources. Considering costs while setting milestones is very valuable to avoid overspending and potential failure.
3. Key Dates
Another important thing is considering key dates related to the sector which we are developing a product for.
For example, defining a specific scope of the product for an exhibition can prevent the product from waiting for another year. Similarly, if we are developing a product for seasonal businesses, we should pay attention to these dates.
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
The most important and primary milestone in the product life cycle is the Minimum Viable Product.
Of course, in your entrepreneurial journey, you may have milestones such as company establishment, finding investment, and hiring employees, but the first milestone in the product’s world is its MVP.
MVP is a product with enough features to get feedback from possible customers and validate the product early in the product development cycle.
Therefore, when defining the scope of the MVP, we should not only consider the features that can be easily implemented.
It is important to consider the scope that allows us to deliver the value proposition we defined for the product with minimal effort and features.
In my experience, while developing a digital platform, we considered the efforts of tasks to define the MVP scope. We couldn’t catch the expected usage data because features such as engagement, social profiles, sharable content, etc. that would attract the attention of users were not included in the scope
After defining the MVP, we can set the other milestones for the future vision of the product, but it is important not to spend too much time on the details of these milestones.
The goal of the MVP is to solve the defined problem with the core features and validate the product.
Since our roadmap can change after the product meets the customer, I suggest you start your journey with MVP scope.
Creating User Stories
At this stage, we have set the roadmap and defined the MVP scope. In the scope determined as the MVP, we will define user stories.
User stories are simple descriptions of a feature told from the perspective of the users/customers who need the new capability.
This work is important to clarify the costs, technologies, internal processes of the product, and interactions between them. Estimating the cost and time required for the development of the product will be easier within this work.
User Story Template:
As a < type of user >, I want < some goal > so that < some reason >
Samples:
- User Story 1: As a busy urban professional, I want a reliable caregiver-finding platform that also lets me track my pet’s well-being in real time.
- User Story 2: As a frequent traveler, I need an easy-to-use app that connects me with trustworthy local caregivers and provides real-time updates on my pet’s activities and health.
- User Story 3: As a pet owner with a hectic schedule, I’m seeking a convenient service to find trustworthy caregivers and track my pet’s daily life.
Building the Team
We have defined our milestones, clarified the MVP scope, and created our user stories. Now we can find the people we need in our team to bring that product to life.
Finding people who cannot work until the MVP scope is determined may create unnecessary resource consumption.
Similar to the product lifecycle, the right action must be taken at the right time.
Certainly, having people, team members, or advisors you can consult with in each field during this process will provide a significant advantage. Otherwise, you may not be able to predict the effects that an expert in the field will state after reaching this detail. This can vary depending on your network, budget, and the type of your product.
Task Management
For the team to work in a planned manner, it is crucial to enrich, plan, and track tasks. Here are a few tools you can use for the task management.
I am considering sharing a detailed article on this topic in the future.
- Trello: A platform I started using in 2014 and liked a lot. Many features have been added after Atlassian’s acquisition. You can meet your needs in your own way with its free features.
- Jira: A professional platform owned by Atlassian that facilitates roadmap management for many small and large teams, with many task management and reporting capabilities. The free option offers limited work for a few people. I have been using it since 2017 in the companies I have worked for.
- Github: If you are working with a software development-focused team, you can directly assign tasks to branches. This way, you can communicate more easily. It includes many features such as a board, and roadmap screens.
- Google Sheets: A product where you can write down your tasks simply and track the start, end, target dates, responsible person, and statuses of those tasks. It is available for multiple users and is free.
You can find alternative task management applications with a short internet search.
The important part here is to find the most easiest application for you, and your team, and simplify the process of tracking the product.
Of course, you can also do all your task tracking with a blank sheet of paper. I just tried to offer free alternatives for the start.
After this step, we are entering the phase of working on our first milestone goal, determining what we need to do as a team, and running towards the goal.
It is a challenging journey with internal and external obstacles.
Stay tuned for the final step of our series — Gathering Feedback and Making Product Decisions.
Thank you for reading.
If you don’t want to miss that post, I recommend following me on Medium.
