Technical debt and legacy issues are common challenges for product road mapping. They can slow down your development, increase your costs, and compromise your quality. How do you overcome them and deliver value to your customers? Here are some tips to help you manage and reduce your technical debt and legacy issues.
The first step is to understand the scope and impact of your technical debt and legacy issues. You need to identify the sources, causes, and consequences of your technical debt and legacy issues. For example, you may have outdated code, obsolete technologies, or poorly documented features. You also need to evaluate the risks, costs, and benefits of addressing or ignoring them. For example, you may have security vulnerabilities, performance issues, or customer complaints. You can use tools such as code analysis, audits, or surveys to help you assess your current situation.
Understanding the scope is good thing to start with, because with this we can get how much effort we need to invest to complete the task. Before getting into scope, I suggest to find the root cause of such unplanned or adhoc asks. Is it something we have to take care at much higher level to bring in more visibility of such aspects. While we plan to implement a big ticket item, as a team we have to consider all the dependencies that we have to cover to before we start the implementation. If still something comes as adhoc, we have to document is somewhere for future learning, so next time we can avoid such situations.
The next step is to prioritize your actions based on your assessment. You need to balance your short-term and long-term goals, as well as your customer and business needs. You need to decide which technical debt and legacy issues are urgent, important, or optional. You can use frameworks such as the Eisenhower matrix, the MoSCoW method, or the RICE score to help you prioritize your actions. You also need to communicate your priorities to your stakeholders, such as your team, your management, or your customers.
Prioritization is most important aspect of product road map and this is one of the key task of a Product Manager. I agree with using different kinds of frameworks to get things prioritized. It helps organization to standardize the process of prioritization. But one additional factor we can introduce to add in this framework is Strategic importance. There might be few client asks which might not get prioritized through RICE, but that client is a stratrgically important for organization. In order to get this gap covered we can add one S (Strategic Importance) to RICE and give weight to such important client asks. Keeping things as transparent as possible with management will help in gaining trust from internal organization.
The third step is to plan your roadmap based on your priorities. You need to define your vision, objectives, and strategies for overcoming your technical debt and legacy issues. You need to align your roadmap with your product vision, value proposition, and customer feedback. You need to break down your roadmap into manageable milestones, tasks, and deliverables. You also need to estimate your resources, time, and budget for each action. You can use tools such as road mapping software, agile methods, or OKRs to help you plan your roadmap.
First thing we have to figure out is how early we have to start this roadmap activity. In my experience of working in different organizations, each company followed a different timeframe. Few companies start this roadmap planning as early as three quarters ahead, other organizations do is one quarter ahead. It all depends on how dynamic the product is and which phase the product is currently in. Advanced planning works for matured products, but the same might not be a good option for products in growth phase. Roadmap planning is something which is very much personalized to each organizations mainly because the product vision, way company plans to address customer feedback, how we break down things and cater them to different agile teams.
The fourth step is to execute your roadmap based on your plan. You need to follow best practices, standards, and processes for developing, testing, and deploying your product. You need to monitor your progress, quality, and impact of your actions. You need to track your metrics, feedback, and learnings. You also need to adapt your roadmap as needed, based on changing requirements, expectations, or opportunities. You can use tools such as project management software, code review, or analytics to help you execute your roadmap.
Execution of roadmap is depenent on multiple stakeholders such as dev team, release operations, documentation, dependent product module teams. I am sure by the time we reach this execution phase, we have already take care of all dependencies through tools such as Jira confluence or internal work management tools. We cannot keep things on hold for a long time once we start the implementation, so covering all gaps should be first priority. Irrespective of how stringent we plan, there will be instances where we have to change or accommodate some new requirement. In such cases product knowledge combined with business need and technical expertise helps us to take quick decisions. During execution phase we cannot spend more time in discussions.
The fifth step is to prevent future debt and legacy issues from accumulating. You need to adopt a culture of quality, innovation, and collaboration in your product development. You need to invest in continuous improvement, learning, and refactoring of your product. You need to document, test, and maintain your code and features. You also need to review, update, and retire your product as necessary, based on customer and market trends. You can use tools such as code quality tools, learning platforms, or product lifecycle management to help you prevent future debt.
Future debt is something that can be minimized by establishing feedback channels across teams. As we document the feedback, which can be a good source for improvement. Keeping up with trend on updates is also important aspect, we should regularly update different components of product such as UI versions, Security implementations, code refractory. By doing these updates we can also improve the usability and customization areas in Product. Market research is something that can help us improve ourselves asa team and think through new dimensions while implementing product features. As a team the better we collaborate the better the output will be. Tools will definitely help us to track progress and anticipate roadblocks that might come up.
The final step is to celebrate your achievements and recognize your efforts. You need to acknowledge the value and benefits of overcoming your technical debt and legacy issues. You need to share your results, insights, and best practices with your stakeholders. You need to reward yourself and your team for your hard work and dedication. You also need to celebrate your customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. You can use tools such as recognition platforms, testimonials, or case studies to help you celebrate your achievements.
Giving a congratulatory message should be done wisely. We need to ensure that every related party/contributor is mentioned. If we miss just one of the associated persons, there will be a risk that someone might feel underappreciated. And we also need precise measurements to ensure that the achievements are accurate and valid.
Along with celebrations we have to acknowledge the efforts put up by individual during this process. This will create a positive cheer in the team and they will get confidence to speak up and share their perspective of things. In current digital age, where we capture all dimensions of data. Sharing relevant data insights with team and let them know the numbers behind the celebrations will be appreciated. As we say success is a team effort and we always have to introspect multiple decisions that we have taken to reach this point. It might not be always true that all decisions taken are right just because we achieved desired results. Knowing that what can be done even better is something that help individuals to stay grounded.
To overcome technical debt and legacy issues, we prioritise ruthless refactoring, embracing modernisation while maintaining a relentless focus on delivering customer value. It's about balancing short-term fixes with long-term investments, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation across the team. 1. Prioritise ruthlessly 2. Invest strategically 3. Foster a culture of ownership 4. Embrace iterative improvements 5. Learn from mistakes
Product roadmap process is something that has to be personalized based on the Product lifecycle and what business team wants to achieve with that product. As the organization continues to expand, we observe a corresponding increase in the interdependent modules that must be taken into account when shaping our product roadmap. While the accessibility of tools is now more prevalent, the crucial factor lies in extracting value from these product management and agile tools to attain the desired outcomes. Product leaders should consistently endeavor to instill the correct intent within fellow product managers and provide guidance that steers them in the right direction.