Taking the time to plan and maintain product roadmaps

For those of us who have recently switched from waterfall to agile or are still maturing your agile cycles for technology product development, there might be a question lingering in our minds -

"When the premise of agile is to have a continuous release train for value delivery, why is there still an ask to draft a product roadmap and keep it honest?"

As per typical project philosophy, there are 3 levers to manage: scope, resources and time. Once we have nailed the product vision, scope is more or less decided. Scaling on resources is possible only to a certain extent, given that it means high costs for engineers. So, ideally the time lever should be completely flexible and there should not be a need to commit to any date.

This does not really happen in the real world. Organizations and leaders typically need a high level sense of when the product will be delivered, esp. in situations where the product is expected to meet critical business goals. Which is where the ask for product roadmaps come in.

Rather than looking at product roadmaps as just a formality or a process step, let us look at the real benefits it brings in -

1. Structure: Product roadmaps are a great way to structure execution end-to-end. When we split the overall product vision into multiple workstreams, break down the tasks to accomplish the workstreams, associate high level timelines to these tasks, and bring it all together into one visual summary, it gives a great sense of the order of sequence and structure in which we should execute the program to stay on course.
2. Progress Check: As we move through the milestones, keeping an eye on the roadmap allows us to continuously evaluate how we are moving as compared to the original plan, and helps retrospect on whether we under-estimated at the start, missed anticipating any roadblocks, or simply did not have the velocity needed to meet the milestones.
3. Risks and Dependencies: Building just the visual summary of multiple workstreams broken down into tasks along with timelines is not sufficient for complex products. Anticipated risks and dependencies on other teams should be explicitly documented and presented along with the roadmap, as we kickoff and at every communication touchpoint. This does 2 things - keep the partner teams aligned to the vision and collaborate at the right time to bring work items to closure, AND allow revisiting timelines of milestones in case any risks convert into issues, or dependencies don't materialize on time.
4. Recalibration at Inflection points: At various points during execution of a complex product, there might be junctures of large change. For example, one part of the work supposed to be owned by a partner team, was suddenly transitioned to a different team, OR a completely NEW workstream had to be prioritized due to business criticality which was not earlier on the roadmap. When such a change happens, it is very critical to take the time, recalibrate the roadmap and communicate the changed timelines to all partners involved. This is extremely important - if we don't want to be burning the midnight oil of the entire team trying to meet unrealistic timelines - trust me, I learned this the hard way.

Many folks working on technology product teams have a misconception that once product roadmap are shared broadly, they will be held accountable and penalized in case of any miss to timelines. What we need to understand is - that is not the intent of roadmap. Roadmaps are primarily a way to structure and keep us marching towards a vision with a plan in place, and NOT a mechanism to have time commitment discussions or penalize anyone even if there are genuine reasons (risks, dependencies or inflection points) for the timelines to move out. Of course, it is the onus of product managers and leaders to effect that culture change to ensure that teams are comfortable with planning and communicating the roadmaps, and have the confidence that it's intent is ONLY to HELP with the product execution, nothing else...

Are there other areas where product roadmaps helped your teams.. If yes, please share. Looking forward to your comments.