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by Gerard Chiva on Jan 13, 2024 5:55:20 AM
In the intricate journey from ideation to product realization, a strategic tool stands out as a beacon of clarity: the product roadmap. This vital blueprint, illustrated by various product roadmap examples, serves as both a guide and a commitment to the product's vision and its alignment with overarching business goals.
Beyond merely outlining features or timelines, product roadmap examples showcase the essence of transforming a project into a product, emphasizing the roadmap's role in navigating the complexities of development.
In this blog post, we'll explore the paramount importance of product roadmaps and delve into real-world examples that highlight their role in ensuring a smooth project-to-product transition.
It might be difficult to comprehend the mechanics of company planning. On the other hand, examples of product roadmaps might help clarify the way ahead. These real-world examples are essential for determining the course and accomplishing the goals of any business.
Product roadmaps function as a thorough plan that promotes coherence and offers an obvious route forward. These roadmaps are visual strategies that are intended to be shared with stakeholders and express the goals and expansionary plans of an organisation for its products.
Product teams curate and oversee this strategic artifact, which outlines the anticipated evolution of a product. Serving as a vital instrument for communication, the product roadmap provides stakeholders with an overview of the months or years ahead by revealing how a product is expected to develop over time.
The Evolution of Product Roadmaps: Beyond Timelines
Many people think of a product roadmap as just a picture of initiatives arranged chronologically. This illustration often shows the product's expected release date as well as its attributes.
Modern product planning, however, tends to use a more flexible, non-linear approach. The primary drawback of timeline-centric strategies is that they prioritize deliverables over business objectives, frequently to the detriment of the latter.
Product plans can be broadly classified into two categories: outcome-based roadmaps and output-based roadmaps.
Output-based roadmaps are the foundation of output-based roadmaps, which arrange them on a timeline to indicate the delivery dates of individual items.
Outcome-based roadmaps, on the other hand, results like client acquisition, engagement enhancement, or conversion rate improvement are given priority in outcome-based roadmaps. Features are still important in this case, but only as components of the roadmap items.
Product features are the foundation of output-based roadmaps, which arrange them on a timeline to indicate the delivery dates of individual items.
On the other hand, results like client acquisition, engagement enhancement, or conversion rate improvement are given priority in outcome-based roadmaps. Features are still important in this case, but only as components of the roadmap items.
Agile vs. Traditional Roadmaps: A Shift Towards Flexibility
A traditional product roadmap is a step-by-step diagram that summarises the overall picture and outlines the actions required to deliver the product. The problem with these conventional roadmaps, though, is that once they are approved, they become antiquated.
Agile roadmaps, on the other hand, represent a dynamic work-in-progress that is always being assessed. Teams are given the freedom to explore potential futures and accelerate innovation thanks to this feature.
Unlike its traditional counterpart, an agile product roadmap is less authoritarian and offers a structure that promotes risk-taking, work prioritisation, and flexibility in response to change. It is simple to maintain and distribute thanks to its lightweight construction.
An agile product roadmap gives teams the freedom to prioritise tasks in accordance with the needs of the company, whereas a traditional product roadmap lists features or deliverables in the order of their release. The agile roadmap encourages a more goal-oriented approach by revolving around a set of precise objectives.
|
|
Traditional roadmap |
Agile roadmap |
|
Purpose |
Deliver on time |
Hit specific product goals as measured by specific product metrics |
|
Focus |
Specific and detailed deliverables like epics, features or functionalities |
Goal- and results-driven |
|
Planning cadence |
Annually |
Monthly/Quarterly |
|
Resource / capacity planning |
Dedicated upfront by major project |
Allocated by progress |
|
Updates |
Arbitrary |
Based upon insights from discovery, feedback and results |
Diverse Product Roadmap Examples: Tailoring to Stakeholder Needs
An effective product roadmap must link the specific requirements, worries, and expectations of important consumers to the value that the roadmap will provide. Even though you are using the same tool, you must give each user segment information that is unique to them.
Through an analysis of several product roadmap examples, we will investigate in this section how to successfully explain the value proposition of product roadmapping for distinct roadmap personas.
Product Roadmap Examples for Executives
The company's investments and the expected return on these investments are usually the main concerns of executives and board members. As a result, the data that is given to these stakeholders ought to include the strategic initiatives, high-level vision, and important business indicators.
Consider providing information in the product roadmap regarding market potential and financial sustainability in order to further convince executives and board members. It may be advantageous to put in place a screening procedure for choosing things for the roadmap.
The end product has to be a briefing or plan submission form that includes all the details needed to comprehend the initiative.
Product Roadmap Examples for Engineering
To plan deliveries, assign resources, develop technical architectures, recognize dependencies, and develop their technological roadmap, engineers need accurate information.
Product owners can oversee a more manageable, organized, and prioritized product backlog by taking part in the product roadmapping process.
A roadmap that starts with your high-level vision and strategy and includes specific details about expected features, development phases, technology, dependencies, and risks is highly valued by development teams. A roadmap containing the aggregate data required for engineering might resemble the illustration below.
Engineers are also expected to be involved in the product discovery process in a product-led organization to verify high-risk assumptions about technical viability, or feasibility.
You can effectively engage this audience by giving engineers the information they need to organize and including them in the product discovery process.
Product Roadmap Examples for Sales and Marketing
Stakeholders in sales and marketing are definitely very interested in certain dates and attributes. Not only is it vital to convey this information, but it's also crucial to convey the degree of detail at which it can be delivered.
Recall that while roadmap themes indicate Features (or Opportunities), precise forecasting will be limited until the development team reviews it.
It is important to highlight the roadmap's function as a tool for strategic alignment and communication.
We'll give timelines, but stakeholders should hold off on making more detailed plans until development teams have had a chance to evaluate the situation thoroughly.
Additionally, your roadmap should assist Sales and Marketing in comprehending the advantages over competitors your product will provide in terms of enhanced value and client benefits.
Your sales and marketing teams should receive access to the roadmap along with additional facts that will be of interest to them, such as target market, confidence levels, external events, and opportunities (or features). The roadmap should contain the same timeframes and topics as all previous views.
Roadmap Design: Crafting an Effective Product Roadmap
Now that you've looked at a variety of product roadmap examples that are suited to a range of audiences, it's time to learn the fundamentals of creating a successful product roadmap artefact and management procedure.
Your organisation must have a clear, common knowledge of what a roadmap is and how it is to be used if you want it to have a significant impact. Without this knowledge, roadmaps can easily turn from being beneficial to harmful.
This serves as the cornerstone for implementing the roadmap successfully.
A roadmap's primary function is that of an alignment and communication tool for its varied user base, which is mostly composed of engineering, senior management, and business stakeholders.
Our experience has shown that creating the roadmap ought to be a team effort that actively involves important users. A user looking through the roadmap should be able to find the information they need and the answers to their queries with ease.
But keep in mind that a roadmap is a strategic tool, and the product backlog is where you should find specific delivery-related information.
Here are some guiding questions to help your organisation get a clear grasp of how it plans to use its roadmap:
- How far into the future should our roadmap extend?
- What should someone in the organization anticipate if they see an initiative on the roadmap three months out?
- What expectations should be set for an initiative on the roadmap nine months out?
- Who requires access to the roadmap?
- How frequently is the roadmap reviewed and by whom?
- How are changes to the roadmap communicated and how often?
- How do we measure the effectiveness of the roadmap?
- What criteria should an initiative meet to be added to the roadmap?
- Should we incorporate all the work into the roadmap? What should be visualized, and what should be excluded?
The responses to these queries will change depending on your stakeholders, organisation, and product. The fact that these questions are asked and addressed in the first place is more important than how they are resolved.
Let's start by concentrating on the roadmap's key design elements.
Roadmap Design Factors: Tailoring to Your Context
Even if every plan should make it apparent how the product might develop over time, it's crucial to create a roadmap artefact and procedure that are especially suited to your particular situation. When creating a roadmap, keep the following basic factors in mind:
- The timeframes
- The level of uncertainty
- Display detail
- Relationship with the Product Backlog
Let's examine a few product roadmap examples for each of these design aspects.
Timeframes
Maybe the most important part of the design process is how the timelines are organised in the roadmap. The degree of unpredictability and volatility in the market for your goods will determine how big these time divisions should be.
While growing and dynamic markets will require shorter durations, mature markets can require larger ones. Common arrangements could consist of:
- Monthly divisions
- Quarterly divisions
- Expanding timeframes, such as:
- 3 months – 6 months – 9 months
- Q1 – Q2 – 2nd Half – Next Year
- The 'Now – Next – Later' approach
Below are two examples illustrating these different time configurations:
Roadmap Example #1 - Expanding Theme-based Roadmap
Roadmap Example #1 - Expanding Goal-based Roadmap
Level of Uncertainty
The degree of uncertainty and the durations involved will determine how specific the elements on the roadmap are.
Strategic elements in future horizons that have not yet undergone product discovery should be articulated in more granular terms than those scheduled for the upcoming quarter, for which some product discovery has already been done.
Display Detail
When putting the product roadmap into practise, a common mistake is to concentrate just on visualisation, ignoring the demands and expectations of the users, the issues it must help solve, and the context in which it will be utilised.
Only when the information requirements and anticipated uses of the product roadmap have been decided upon should the roadmap display be specified. The product roadmap's three primary visual components are as follows:
- Columns: Representing timeframes
- Swimlanes: Illustrating Goals, Teams, or Themes (or a combination)
- Granularity: Determined by the timeframe (and level of uncertainty)
It is essential to take into account how the roadmap will interact with the product backlog throughout design, particularly with regard to any possible overlaps. While both artefacts are required, they have different functions.
Neither an excessively comprehensive roadmap nor a backlog with an excessively distant focus are what we seek.
The primary choice is what belongs in each artefact and how the elements of the two artefacts connect to one another. One potential arrangement would be:
- Objectives and themes in the product roadmap
- Epics (or Opportunities) within each Roadmap Theme
- Epics and user stories in the product backlog, each linking back to their corresponding Theme
Relationship with the Product Backlog
Designing the relationship between the roadmap and the product backlog is crucial, particularly when it comes to potential overlaps.
Though, as we have already stated, each artifact has a distinct function, we still require both. Neither a long-term backlog nor an extremely comprehensive roadmap are what we desire.
The primary choices are which elements go into each artifact and how the elements of the two artifacts are connected.
A possible structure would be:
- Objectives and themes in the product roadmap
- Epics (or Opportunities) within each Roadmap Theme
- Epics and user stories in the product backlog (linking back to their corresponding Theme)
Summary
This post has discussed the idea of a product roadmap and shown several examples that are customized to meet the demands of different target audiences.
Timelines, uncertainty levels, display detail, and the relationship with the product backlog are just a few of the important elements that we've covered about creating a successful roadmap.
You may develop a plan that is an effective strategic tool for your company by taking these factors into account.
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