What Separates a Good Product Roadmap from a Bad One?
We create a product roadmap to envision what lies ahead for the product to communicate with the team, senior management, customers and all stakeholders. It provides clarity, adds purpose and a sense of direction for everyone.
As the name suggests, it should tell you the map for going from point A to point B. Few characteristics of a good product roadmap are:
- Future looking: Not only it is solving current issues, but also building future benefits
- Goal oriented: It aligns with the Objectives & Key results that you have identified for the next quarter or two. In short, the roadmap must be aligned with the GPS
- Prioritised: It must reflect items that have been prioritised by the team for the product, company & customer
- User journey driven: The items on the product roadmap must be based on user journeys, rather than being a group of stand-alone features
- Reason: You must have a reason for the selection of the roadmap items, their priority order on the roadmap, and the benefits it would bring
On the other hand, a bad roadmap could be the one that doesn’t have the above listed characteristics and/or has any combination of the below:
- Random list of items grouped together to be done
- List of tasks or features placed in a serial order
- No reasoning behind their selection, order or benefits
- No collaboration with the team
- No sense of guidance as to where does this roadmap leads you to
Note: The product roadmap tells us the ‘What’ and not ‘How’ to get things done.
If you have any other questions, do write to us and we will get back to you with the best possible solution.
Ask your questions on our Contact Us page.
Thanks,
Onkar Singh Lohtham | Founder & CPO | Lead Trainer
