HomeCharacteristics of a good product roadmap
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.
