A Simple Trick To Build A Better Product Roadmap

When building a product, having a product roadmap is an essential thing to have prior to getting started. A product roadmap is a strategic plan that defines the goal of the product solution and how to get there. Just like a road trip, planning a roadmap is detrimental to ensuring a smooth journey to reach your product goal. Both a good road trip and roadmap has five key aspects.

1. A Destination (Choosing Your Product Roadmap End Goal)

Going on a trip without knowing when to stop or end your trip can be very tiring. Because any good road trip should start with having a final destination in mind, something you look forward to. Having an end in mind will guide your planning process and let you know if you have completed the trip.

This is the literal definition and implementation of data-driven product roadmap planning. Therefore, the first thing you need to do for is to decide a SMART success metric as your end goal.

2. Choosing Road Trip Buddies (Defining Product Roadmap Strategy Themes)

Another key ingredient for a great road trip is going with the right people. People who’s company you enjoy and who are excited to get to the same destination. Because having multiple backup drivers will ensure that you don’t tire yourself out in the middle of the journey.

In other words, you need to identify the smaller and more actionable input metrics to drive you closer to your goal.

If your success metric is to achieve 500k Monthly Profit, the actionable input metrics might be:

Having multiple smaller input metrics will let you shift to different themes/strategies (switch drivers) to arrive at the same goal.

3. Route Identification (Product Roadmap Initiative Ideation)

The best thing about a road trip is that there are numerous routes you can take to reach your destination. It’s important to do a bit of research to identify the possible routes you take before deciding. Depending on which route you take, you’ll get a different experience.

The input metrics from the previous steps will act as themes. And in this step you’ll need to identify the initiatives/features that you can pursue to impact each metrics. Ideate and be as creative as possible, as a result

This is where the ideation process comes in handy, come up with as many ideas, you can trim it down later.

For example, in order to reduce cost you can develop some automation features, cut out/optimize operation steps, integrate with partners, etc.

4. Driving Schedules (Planning Your Focus and Timeline)

In a road trip, there can only be one driver at a time. Having five people in the car wanting to go to a different pit stop is a recipe for disaster. You can’t satisfy everyone all at once. With that said, someone needs to take charge and decide which stop to make first.

As a product manager, you have limited resources. Trying to focus on multiple things at once will result in no impact at all. To make the biggest impact, it’s important to strategize and pick one focus at a time. For example, i n order to achieve your goal of 500k Monthly Profit, your roadmap might look like this:

• Month 1: Driving operating costs down and streamline operations
• Month 2: Once costs are optimized, we can start to increase user’s basket size and scale new sales
• Month 3: With the stability of existing revenue stream, we can start to then explore new revenue streams

In the end, you will still get to do everything, but this time it will be more timely and impactful.

5. The Actual Trip (The Execution)

Planning is one thing, but it doesn’t count as a road trip unless you actually start driving on the road. Note that also no matter how good you plan, there is bound to be something unexpected on the road. When that happens, remember to enjoy the journey and be flexible with your plan with the same end in mind.

Some things might not go according to plan, so make sure to leave some room for flexibility. Product management comes with a lot of trial and error process, you’ll need to build, measure and learn from it. Once you reach your destination, you’ll get to do it over again and plan for another road trip. Also don’t forget to enjoy the journey. Happy road tripping!