Product Ownership Techniques # 4 — Product Roadmap
Here is my next post on the techniques that are prominently used in Product Management (as mentioned in CPOA -IIBA). Refer to my previous post for notes on the Product-Market Fit.
What is a Product Roadmap?
Product Roadmap is a strategic, visual tool that is used to communicate the direction or the progress towards the vision for your solution or initiative, achieving the stakeholder’s desirable outcome.
More about Product Roadmap…
A Product Roadmap is a visual representation of how a team plans to implement its product strategies over a longer time. It has the identified features, requirements or initiatives planned for the product to be delivered over time.
Basically, the Product Roadmap gives an insight about,
- How the product will grow
- Its alignment to the stakeholder’s needs
- Preparedness for the incoming budget requirements.
A Product Roadmap enables an iterative delivery by expressing the features/ requirements in terms of now, next and later. Looking at a roadmap, one can find what the product does and does not.
In general, a Product Roadmap serves as a
- The link between a product vision and its delivery
- Influence on how the product will be built.
- Influence and alignment for architectural and technical strategic decisions.
Types of Product Roadmap
There are three commonly used types of roadmaps,
- Goal-oriented
- Now, Next and Later
- Story Mapping
Let’s see what each one is about!
Goal-Oriented Product Roadmap:
This type of roadmap focuses on outcomes with success criteria. It is used to guide the outcome of the product, with only the most beneficial features for consideration.
Following is a sample template on how a goal-oriented product roadmap may look like,
Now, Next, Later Product Roadmap:
This type of roadmap visually communicates what is currently being worked on, what is planned and what is scheduled for a later time. Features that need to be implemented in these timelines are scheduled based on the value and benefit each one of them provides.
Story Mapping:
This kind of roadmap gives an overview of features and their related activities, that needs to be incorporated into the product. This type of product roadmap is highly beneficial during the beginning of new product planning, fully engaging the stakeholders to share understanding and design solution feature ideas.
But, care should be given that the stakeholders don’t get the impression that all the features listed in story mapping have to be developed compulsorily.
Components of Product Roadmap
Following are the different components of a Product Roadmap,
Defined Vision and Strategy
A roadmap will define the strategy through which the product vision will be realized.
Defined Desired Outcomes
Articulating the organization’s or the stakeholder’s outcomes helps the delivery team to focus on ones that add value.
Product Management Team
The product management team focuses on maintaining the product roadmap, and ensuring that it reflects, the current priorities and goals, tailors the view based on the audience and makes it accessible.
The Product Management team makes sure that they get the necessary buy-in from the delivery team, as they have the capability to determine the feature’s feasibility and timelines.
Themes
It includes that represents the collection of requirements, features or stories.
High-Level Requirements
A roadmap will have the high-level features or requirements that will deliver the value to achieve the vision and goals of the solution.
With all the basic details of a Product Roadmap being discussed above, now, let’s see the process to create one!
Steps to create a Product Roadmap
By now, you might have got a basic understanding of what a product roadmap is, its types and steps to create it.
To reiterate, let’s quickly summarize what a Product Roadmap is and what it is not!
A Product Roadmap can
- Present a unified view of the solution and access to all stakeholders and ensure their suggestions and feedbacks are tracked.
- Orient stakeholders to a shared focus.
- Facilitate the discussion of priorities for the product.
- Be presented as different views to different stakeholders, based on their needs.
- Ensure the work aligns with the product vision and strategy
- Be updated based on the market trends and track the strategic plan of the product
- Sometimes include technical and architectural considerations of the product.
A Product Roadmap cannot be
- Effective if the organization is not clear about its product goals
- Used as Milestone or data-driven roadmap
- Maintained if its time consuming or if it loses its purpose/ effectiveness by making it too detailed.
