Roadmaps: Use different fidelities for different audiences

Roadmaps are both the bane of our existence and one of our most useful communication and alignment tools. It’s just a matter of how/when you use them.?

This is an early excerpt from a book I am working on that I plan to call "Product Snacks". It will be a concise collection of chapters, each offering practical and accessible advice for product managers and designed to be a desk-side companion, providing quick, digestible tips to guide and inspire when you're seeking clarity or a fresh perspective. I’d love ANY and ALL feedback and if you’d like to collab, let’s chat!

In our world of product management, roadmaps consistently rank high in our discussions and are often among the first items requested by our cross-functional stakeholders. However, they are more than annoying assignments; I view them as invaluable navigational aids that guide both your team and its counterparts towards a shared goal. They resemble compasses in many ways – useful for confirming if you're heading in the right direction, yet they don't provide a detailed map of the terrain ahead or an estimate of how long the journey's going to take.

With this in mind, I'd like to offer several practical tips about these tools. There are four key elements to consider when shaping your roadmap: Audience, Fidelity, Time Horizon, and Refresh Rate. Let's explore each of these in more detail.

Before you make a roadmap, you have to understand your Audience.

Understanding your audience when creating a roadmap is akin to understanding your users during product development. A one-size-fits-all approach rarely succeeds. Just as a single version of a product won't satisfy all users, a singular roadmap format is unlikely to meet the diverse needs of every stakeholder. Your audience will span various levels of the organization, each bringing their own depth of context – some will come with a rich background of information, while many will possess only a basic understanding.?

Ask yourself what the job to be done is: who exactly needs to access the roadmap, the extent of their understanding of the project, their unique informational needs, and the reasons behind these requirements.?

Now determine the level of Fidelity you need your roadmap in

After identifying your roadmap's intended audience, the next step is to decide on the appropriate level of detail, or fidelity, required. For individuals engaged in long-range planning, such as executives, a higher-level view is suitable. In this case, your roadmap can be more general, focusing on broader themes and desired outcomes.?

On the other hand, if you're addressing stakeholders concerned with operational intricacies—like how your project influences other teams, dependencies between work streams, or potential risks—a more detailed roadmap is necessary. This should include finer elements of the work and known dependencies.

When your audience is your immediate team, and the focus is on short-term goals, the roadmap should drill down to even finer details, such as specific epics, stories, tasks, and individual responsibilities. This granular approach ensures clarity and a shared understanding of who is accountable for each aspect of the project.

After Fidelity comes Time Horizon

Alongside the fidelity of your roadmap, the Time Horizon is another essential factor. Your communication may need to range from immediate actions—what's happening this month—to broader strategic directions, illustrating where the product is heading without a definite timeline for achieving these broader goals.

When tailoring your roadmap for different audiences, it's crucial to align it with the time horizon that best suits their interests. High-level roadmaps, typically for senior stakeholders, often encompass a longer-term outlook, highlighting major outcomes and themes. In contrast, roadmaps for team-level stakeholders usually focus on a shorter timeframe, detailing more immediate tasks and goals.

However, a roadmap incorporating multiple time horizons can be incredibly effective, especially when dealing with a variety of stakeholders. This approach might involve presenting more detailed timelines, such as week-over-week progress for the current quarter, at the outset. Then, progressively 'zoom out' to provide a broader view for subsequent quarters and the latter half of the year.

It's no silver bullet, but this layered timeframe structure communicates effectively across different levels of the organization. It provides immediate, actionable insights for short-term planning and paints a comprehensive picture of the strategic direction, aiding the execution team in grasping the overarching vision. Below is a quick illustration of how such a roadmap might be structured:

Last consider your Refresh Rate.?

It's important to avoid the trap of creating an excessive number of roadmaps, which can become a challenge to maintain. Strive to keep your roadmaps both useful and manageable. Spending excessive time on updating documents can detract from your primary role in product management, which is to deliver tangible outcomes, not just roadmaps. Remember, productivity is not just about being busy; it's about being effective.

To achieve this, establish a structured schedule for refreshing your roadmaps and communicate this schedule clearly and consistently. By setting expectations about when updates will occur—be it every few weeks or months—you can effectively manage inquiries and reduce the frequency of unscheduled updates.

I recommend that most product managers maintain three versions of their roadmap, each with a predetermined refresh rate. This approach balances the need for up-to-date information with the practicalities of managing your time efficiently.

Version 1: Annual Roadmap

• Audience: Executive / VPs
• Fidelity: Shows all product lines against the same timeline. Show chunky quarterly themes and outcome targets. It’s useful to also show a workstream for “other” ambitions here too that helps describe what you plan to focus on if you’re successful in achieving your top level goals, essentially showing your backlog. I tend to prefer using sheets or excel for this one.?
• Time Horizon: 12 Months
• Refresh rate: Quarterly?

Version 2: Weekly/Quarter/Half?

• Audience: VPs / Directors
• Fidelity: Show monthly detail for at least three months, show themes and outcomes for the next three months, and then show themes and outcomes for the last 6 month chunk. I tend to use a slide in a deck for this view. It can be visually pleasing and reused for all sorts of different scenarios.
• Time Horizon: 12 Months
• Refresh rate: Quarterly, but in some cases this may need to be monthly

Version 3: WoW for at least 3 months

• Audience: Directors & Team
• Fidelity: Show week over week detail at the epic and maybe even story level. I suggest you use the native features you get out of most project management tools for this so it’s easier to maintain. If you’re like most of us who can’t get away from Jira, their roadmapping feature is actually quite useful.
• Time Horizon: 3 Months
• Refresh rate: Every two weeks

Fear not, I made you this little matrix and a template to help you quickly think about the roadmaps and the levels of fidelity you can consider.?

Here is a template you can copy and edit to make your life a little easier:

Roadmap Template

To wrap us up:?

Don’t think of roadmaps as an annoying chore. A well-crafted set of roadmaps are a testament to thoughtful planning and strategic foresight. The act of making and maintaining them will help you think critically and that is worth it in and of itself. Roadmaps will serve to set expectations and guide your teams and help to limit the back and forth if they are done well, refreshed often, and used to communicate with your stakeholders regularly.