Product Roadmap
Perhaps one of the most asked questions in a sales presentation (aside from how much does it cost, how does it benefit me, why is it unique) is what is coming next? It's not uncommon for young companies to feel like a wisdom tooth is being pulled when asked to produce a product roadmap. Are you making unalterable commitments? Does the Product team really know what you need to do next? Can you predict what Engineering is able to produce and by when? Who drives what the next choices are? Is Sales making a promise that the business can't follow through with so will risk an unhappy customer?
The Product team must have a product roadmap. Without a statement about what is next, effectively a direction of innovation or sustained value, customers will likely be more loyal to your competition. Keep in mind that often the roadmap becomes a frame of reference for a conversation, so without this, it is hard to gather customer and market feedback as you would be limited to the feature set you have released.
The roadmap also helps Engineering make critical technical stack decisons. The longer term feature goals help shape decisions around security, scalability, user experiences and more.
The creation of a roadmap is a business commitment of sorts. "If we don't do what we say on the roadmap, customers will be unhappy". If you tell your customers you are going to deliver feature A and B, but they continually ask for C, you have been given a gift -- pivot away from A and B to focus on C. Show customers you can deliver the value C asks for. No penalties for refining a roadmap to contain what it needs to contain. While not obvious in the first experience, if you have A and B on your roadmap but customers prove to never really need it, they won't punish you for not delivering it. But they will reward you for deliverying C if this is what is the most valuable capability needed next.
The Product team is responsible for the production of the roadmap, for communicating it to customers and for maintaining it over time. It is a hard document to produce properly and even more difficult to manage through a lifecycle, as it will change as your business matures and customer engagement drives more and more the decisions that need to be made.
The remainder of this article explores the details of how a product roadmap gets produced, what it should contain, how it should be presented and how to maintain it over time. It is a critical dynamic corporate document and should always be aligned with the overall business strategy.
Version ONE or MVP
No one really likes to buy the first version of anything. Even globally successful companies like Apple can run into issues that expose the weaknesses resulting from accelerating time to market in response to emerging competition. For young companies, version ONE is an important deliverable as it is the first version you can use to validate the value proposition of your business plan. To also confirm your ability to delivery and support a product in market.
The M.V.P. (Minimum Viable Product) is where you need to deliver a closed loop of functionality that provides at least a single benefit to the end customer. The MVP serves to get you "into the game". It is the start of the validation process of your business premise. It helps confirm or beat down important decisions made in the abstract stages of forming a business.
The following are important concepts to keep in mind when preparing an MVP product plan:
- You are transitioning from "nothing" to "something"
- Resist the inclination to pile innovations and ideas into the MVP. Choose the one or two features that have impact on customer needs but most importantly, provide you confirmation of the value proposition you are seeking.
- If you view this as a race, the winner only needs to be ahead
- It does not matter how far ahead, you still only earn the win of the race. Don't waste time, effort, money and distractions by trying to do too much for your MVP.
- Make sure the MVP is complete in terms of the background functionality
- It shows you know how to form complete solution in the eye of the customer
- Market success is a long term journey
- You need to have lots of nitritional elements (e.g. features) in your backpack to keep the race going.
- An MVP project is a practice session for the Engineering team.
- Create an achievable project plan for your MVP so the team starts with a success, stretch goals come later.
Many teams start with lofty goals without the details and experience needed to know whether or not you can actually achieve them. New products often come with new challenges that need time to figure out properly.
Comprehensive Roadmap
When looked at from a comprehensive point of view, here are the main points to cover in a full roadmap. Much of the following is used for internal purposes, only some of it heads to customer presentations. All of it is important and should line up -- 100%, with the company's overall strategy.
- Vision & Goals
- Time Horizons (Short, Mid, Long-Term)
- Key Features & Prioritization
- Milestones & Deadlines
- Metrics for Success
- Risks & Mitigation Strategies
- Cross-Team Collaboration & Dependencies
- Flexibility & Adaptation
Resources
Sample Roadmap Presentation (PPT)
Sample Roadmap Presentation (PDF)