You’re creating a product roadmap for your team. What’s the most important thing to keep in mind?

Some roadmap best practices: 1. Provide rough estimates e.g. ETA between the 3rd - 4th sprint of the quarter. Not exact date but also give stakeholders some guidance 2. Align initiatives with company strategy 3. Really focus on problems and not the perfect feature. This will help maximize impact 4. Regularly refer to roadmap during meetings, emails and other company announcements

As the name suggests, product 'roadmap' should logically lay out features that are necessary to reach the product's vision. It is a living document aligned across the org, which contains a filtered catalog of executable ideas coming from all stakeholders (including customers). Among a lot of things, the roadmap answers below fundamental questions about the product - 1) What features do we need to build to realize the product's vision? In what order? At what time? 2) Which big bets are we taking? At what time? 2) What are pebbles on the path (aka bugs) that customers are the most bothered about? 4) What (tech) debt does that product have, which if unsolved, could slow down the product?

The most important thing to keep in mind in creating a product roadmap: ? Aligning roadmap with business strategy ? Involving key stakeholders ? Maintaining flexibility for adjustments

I’ve seen having really simple problem statement and Vision of product helps contributors to have wider focus while contributing. While building the product roadmap(s) from a (automatic)connected source like technical and business features/enhancements map, gives an edge to take the easy calculative decisions in planning, backlog priority, and have control on technical debt.

When developing a product roadmap I always consider the KPI’s, stakeholder contribution and feedback as well as my Technology team capabilities and availability and scheduling. The KPI’s are critical because you need to make sure that your goals are accurate and aligned to what you’re implementing and that leadership has blessed these items. From there my main stakeholders will be apart of my final rollout as I prepare with the IT for full implementation. There are always different nuances that come up so it’s important to have any minor details and features and any other tweaks and changes have been documented and discussed thoroughly with implementation team. IT capabilities and really building a relationship

I cannot emphasize the importance of involving the engineering team enough. Having the team's buy-in is crucial in making the product roadmap a hit or a miss. One of the common mistakes I have seen many product managers make is agreeing on product features or roadmaps without consulting their teams. It is essential to understand the team's capacity and technical feasibility through proper discovery while continuously communicating with the team.

A product roadmap might be a product manager’s creation but it has to be approved and agreed internally by all the stakeholders and team members involved. For each milestones the dependency on the stakeholders is huge and it’s only up to them to give the exact complexity of the timelines and effort needed. Moreover pushing something onto the team leads to a morale breakdown and the product thus created can be a result of haste which then will not serve the vision.

Another essential aspect on the importance of team involvement when creating a roadmap is the psychological influence on the responsibility. Everyone who will be involving need to contribute their idea and contribute to the product and not limited to stakeholders. With this involvement in the early stage, the team member will feel the inclusiveness on the product roadmap and feel accountable and responsible while making it, resulted in productive outcome.

To develop and deliver a product roadmap, close collaboration between product management and other key functions is essential. In the medical device sector, this involves partnering between functions such as research and development, manufacturing/operations, quality and regulatory affairs, clinical, and commercial. This ensures the roadmap is deliverable. In particular early collaboration with the commercial team to align on the launch cadence, provides each product the best chance to realising its full potential.

Creating a product roadmap effectively involves a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches. It's crucial to begin with a clear understanding of the business strategy, goals, and priorities, aligning the roadmap with these elements. Engaging executive leadership for their insights on business vision and key problems to solve forms the top-down aspect. Simultaneously, a bottom-up approach is essential, where the product team is empowered to propose and validate key initiatives to achieve these goals. This method ensures team empowerment, ownership, and alignment with the overarching business objectives.

When creating a product roadmap, prioritizing is crucial to demonstrate understanding of customer needs, drive resourcing decisions, & align stakeholders. Prioritization forces product managers to make tough decisions about which capabilities will deliver the most value based on research, analytics, and assessments. With finite staffing & budget, prioritizing enables allocating scarce resources to features driving value. By providing transparency into upcoming features & rationale, it gives executives, customers and teams visibility for coordinating organizational execution. With data backing priorities and clear alignment to customer needs, prioritization brings order, focus & strategic decision-making when creating a product roadmap.

In my experience, irrespective of the framework you use, effective roadmap prioritization in real life boils down to 4 things and this is where the heavy lifting lies: 1. How clearly you can articulate the customer benefit in a quantified way? 2. Is the estimated benefit rooted in deep customer insights? 2. Does the benefit align with the business outcomes you want to drive? 3. Do you have the right effort and tech risks identified working with a trustful engineering partner? Once the work is done to get above, you can use either RICE or the Kano model or a combination of the two to do the prioritization exercise.

Prioritization of the roadmap is an effective trade-off between time to market, user satisfaction, resources needed and impact that can be created. In summary, while RICE focuses on impact assessment and resource allocation, the Kano model emphasizes customer satisfaction and differentiation, and the MoSCoW method helps manage stakeholder expectations and prioritize requirements based on urgency and importance. Each method offers a unique approach to feature prioritization, catering to different aspects.

You can't have a perfect roadmap with prioritization irrespective of the type of roadmap. I agree that you can prirotize using any of these framework, RICE, MoSCoW and Kano Model. However, I personally prefer MoSCoW( Must-Have, Should-Have, Could-Have and Won't-Have) when crafting a feature roadmap for a product. Another thing is that I use agile methodology which means I prefer to prioritize the core features of the product so I can get feedback from the beta users. And I definitely do factor in the beta users feedback on the MVP product when crafting the roadmap. It has been of great help for me, you can also try it.

Prioritizing the product roadmap is pivotal in product management. Align initiatives with business objectives and customer needs, emphasizing features with the highest impact. Conduct thorough analyses, considering factors like market trends, user feedback, and technical dependencies. Prioritization ensures focused efforts on high-value tasks, optimizing resources and streamlining development. Regularly reassess and adjust priorities based on evolving market dynamics, maintaining agility and responsiveness. A well-prioritized roadmap guides the team cohesively toward delivering impactful outcomes aligned with strategic goals.

Tackling confirmation bias is vital when formulating assumptions. Question whether your team feels empowered to engage in constructive skepticism, challenging ideas for the betterment of the project. Reflect on the diversity of your information sources: are you exploring a wide range of perspectives, or staying within a comfortable echo chamber? Regularly challenge your own beliefs, as if you're playing a thought-provoking game of chess against yourself. Finally, document your assumptions and their real-world outcomes. This practice not only helps you learn from past experiences but also guides you in making more informed decisions in the future.

It is important to conduct a thorough validation of assumptions, both internally and externally. Analytics tools such as Pendo and Google Analytics will help to gain insights into user behavior, which can be subsequently validated through user interviews and surveys. Furthermore considering inputs from GTM teams, like Sales, Customer Success, and also leadership is equally important. This collaborative approach not only refines assumptions but also strategically readies all stakeholders for a seamless future go-live.

Assumptions are naturally present in the world of product development which is ever-changing. These assumptions need to be validated at every stage of the roadmap. Use data analysis to confirm assumptions regarding user behavior, market trends, and performance parameters. Feedbacks in the real world from a variety of sources provide insightful information and validates assumptions from the user’s point of view. Submit your product for prototypes, beta releases, or user testing to ensure it matches users’ expectations. Continuous validation helps mitigate the risk of investing resources in directions that may not appeal to users or address market needs. This is an iterative approach that focuses on the feedback.

Validate Assumptions Your product roadmap relies on assumptions. Ensure accuracy by testing with data and feedback—interviews, surveys, experiments. Use tools like lean canvas or hypothesis statements to document and track assumptions. Avoid building on guesswork! ??? #ProductValidation

Reflecting on my experience in a sales-led region, validating assumptions for a product roadmap demands leveraging sales insights. Sales teams, often the closest to customers, provide real-time market feedback. I’ve found integrating their on-ground insights crucial for validating our roadmap assumptions. Regular interactions with sales can reveal customer needs and market trends, offering a practical reality check. This approach has led us to pivot or adjust features on our roadmap, ensuring alignment with actual market demands. It’s a dynamic process, blending sales intelligence with product vision, crucial in regions where sales drive organizational focus. This has helped in keeping our product development relevant and responsive.

Product management is very dynamic in nature. The real world is even more dynamic where change is constant and things keep evolving. You need not be on your toes all the time, but it is important to keep track of the changes going around and evaluate your approach. Not everything that is hot and trending is needed for our product. The fit has to be evaluated and then the changes can be made to the roadmap. Always be aware of what you are trying to solve and whether you would be able to achieve it with the changes being proposed.

A good roadmap changes often. The further out your roadmap who's, the greater the need for it to change. How accurate can we be with what we want to deliver in 18 months? Not very. But we should be certain of what we are delivering in the current sprint for our products. Knowing that roadmaps are supposed to change means we must control the change and manage communications.

One thing that we need to do as product managers are to look at the NEW changes demanded to the product or system being built and evaluate their impact. If the impact of not adapting to the change sooner is high, we should re prioritise, even if it is in the middle of an planned increment. It is very important to deliver more value but also important to deliver the product right in every incremental delivery. And we should also make sure all stakeholders and teams have agreed to cope with such changes

Customers. Market Trends. Internal Stakeholders. These are the three forces driving your roadmaps dynamism. Depending on the state of these forces, new objectives may rise, old initiatives become redundant, and with that a constant regular review becomes necessary.

The market, technology, and user needs can evolve rapidly, requiring adjustments to your plan. For instance, if a competitor releases a breakthrough feature halfway through your development cycle, reassess your roadmap priorities to ensure your product remains competitive. This might mean accelerating the development of a similar feature or pivoting to a new innovation. Staying flexible and responsive to change ensures your product continues to meet market demands and user expectations.

Ever heard of “the rule of the empty chair”? In Amazon, an empty chair in meetings symbolizes the customer. What would the customer say if made part of these discussions? It’s a constant reminder that everything a product does must enhance its customers’ lives in some way. “Start with the customer and work backward.” Without happy customers a product will not win long term.

The key thing to consider is the end customer requriements, and then translate that to product features/solutions in the roadmap. Map out the stakeholders involved in delivering these items on the roadmap , get alignment and commitment including resources. Chart out the dependencies and risks in the program and monitor then closely.

Call out the dependencies on other teams beyond your product without whom the roadmap is not successful - Call the dependencies early on so dependent teams can include it in their internal roadmap - Provide the expected timeline when this is needed to the dependent teams can plan accordingly - Ensure you inform all the internal stakeholders on what the success of this feature means for the organization so that you provide the bigger picture

Having a roadmap that is dynamic is important, however having a leadership team that is aligned and willing to commit to the resources and time it will take to get there is even more important. In addition to that, the roadmap must represent the complete body work the team will accomplish and not highlighted projects. You can include highlights as well but not including all projects may demotivate some members in your team.

Crafting a product roadmap is the result of extensive preparatory work & a series of strategic exercises. From my standpoint, a critical aspect of this process is the early identification of stakeholders who bear responsibility for various facets of the project. This involves assembling a core team whose roles & responsibilities align with the roadmap. The journey, undertaken collaboratively by the core team, involves garnering buy-in from relevant stakeholders. As shared in the book 'Good to Great,' securing the commitment of the right individuals getting on the bus for the journey is the pivotal & foremost step. While assembling this team may take time, the ultimate value it brings to the roadmap is unquestionably worth the investment.