Product roadmap and its criticality for higher quality outcomes

Ever wonder how great scientists and historical figures made it in their lives? Well they had a plan laid out guiding them towards how they should achieve certain goals. Nevertheless most of them were accidental but not always.

The main point of the previous terrible joke is that there was a plan which guided them to do their tasks. The same principle can be applied when dealing with products/solutions. In order to get to the final part of the product (the market), there is a certain plan that has to be followed to ensure that what is delivered is of top notch quality and valid enough that can be monopolized in the market to earn both a profit and the trust of the clients followed by making sure it does solves the pain pints of the customers in their operations or activities.

A product road map is a planned written or visual guide depicting the stages and to control the step by step process of how a product can come into existence in bits and parts and then turning into a game changer or a suite of solution. It provides a path which contains various stages and tasks that need to be completed in planned increments. These steps usually divide the tasks amongst many categories that not only keep the quality in check by letting the specific skilled personnel deal with their respective fields but also make sure that each item on the list is checked off at every level. There is no way that the quality is a responsibility of one department, it has to be accounted from every single individual who is working and playing role in operations.

We can devise that a detailed road map is as important as the management of the product as several factors affect the product itself such as:

1.????Demand and supply

2.????New modifications or updates to a previous product

3.????A new product idea

4.????Enhancements to improve the process in a serial manner

5.????Changes and fixes as per the compliance needs (21 CFR Part11, EU Annex 11, ALOCA+, HIPAA, FERPA, FCRA, GDP, GxP, GDPR, GAMP5, CSV, CSA etc.)

The product manager is mainly responsible for creating a viable road map that not only governs the process but also the personnel involved. It is ultimately the team that makes it all happen so if they are organized in conjunction with the set rules and regulations then the work itself gets organized with least deviations and failures.

The many faces of a road map are as such but not limited to:

1.????The organizer road map

2.????Timeline road map

3.????Strategic road map

4.????Communicative road map

5.????The End game road map

The organizer road map

This particular map deals with all the organizing and planning of the product. The initial stage of any work is the planning and organizing of tasks according to the team skill set, workload, time limit, contingencies steps, and availability of multi-tasking resources.

Timeline road map

Time is money and so is this road map. Every project or product idea has a time limit or timeline by which it comes into existence via an idea, is set to be produced and when it is to be launched into the market. Each and every step is limited by time in which everything has to be completed irrespective of the research project review, factory testing and user acceptance. In simple terms we can say that meet the deadlines or meet the dead line.

The strategic road map

Investment and efforts as well as progression of the product under the watch full eyes of the timeline road map fall under the strategic road map. Each step taken towards the end and the initiatives taken through the leadership of the managers is planned here.

Communicative road map

There are cases where before a product is launched the market is made aware of its existence and the stages of its production to build up an anticipated crowd that waits for it to be launched so that they can own the said product. A great example of this type of road map is mobile phone companies that release designs of their products before the actual product. This communication done between the firm and the market also needs planning as a certain timeline is created to release certain plans into the public at those specific timings.

The end game road map

This road map focuses on the releasing of the product itself. As important as the production part of the road map is the release is equally important. Once all procedures are completed, certain marketing strategies are to be implemented so that the maximum market knows what is being released in their domain. This requires a lot of planning on what type of people/industries to target, their age/business and their income as well as the location and country specific compliances, which advertisements to release, press releases and magazine exposure.

Any guess, how exactly do we make a product road map? Well the steps are so damn simple:

1.????Brainstorming of the idea for product

2.????Market research to know the pain points of the users/operations/project managers, line managers, reporting managers, business development team etc.

3.????Analyzing of market research and resources needed to give life to the product

4.????Creation of Guidelines and goals

5.????Organizations of plans and steps

6.????Setting deadlines

7.????Task allocation to respective departments

8.????Production planning

9.????Quality check and control

10.??Deviation tracking and taking resolutions on same

11.??Final Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) / User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

12.??Marketing

13.??Release of the final product for sale / Implementation

Considering all the above steps we can finally make a viable road map and strategize on how to give the product some value. How are these two different? Well one can be delivered incrementally or in an evolutionary fashion, and high-level requirements or epics are their building blocks. Product roadmaps act as the bridge between the product strategy and the actual tactical product development that is undertaken in pursuit of attaining the product goals.

Challenges of Scaling and Failures:

There are times when scaling products mostly fails or becomes challenging. These are due to certain steps that get miscalculated during either strategizing or certain types of road maps. Mainly the failure results due to poor management and choices made. In many cases the selection of the poor architecture of the technology leads to a failure that takes most of the time in stabilizing it as a permanent or temporary fix, but not always the made fixes works.

If we choose incompetent people to handle things then the product is bound to fail before it even reaches the end users. Certain skills are needed to do certain tasks and if they are not matched with the work that has to be done then there the product may not see the day of light.

Not only the wrong people but also the wrong priorities can cause failure, such as setting unachievable goals, unplanned changes, trying to get the most in the least time lined project plan and expectations with deadlines that make no sense or making a product that is itself not needed in the operations, outdated practices and management styles or unreasonable pricing.

In the end we must not be the mutant member of our own products but be the active gene that takes the cancer away.

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