Quick Tips - June 7, 2007

Product roadmaps can be powerful assets to leading a technology business – buy only if they are created and managed in the context of appropriate policies. In fact, the product roadmapping process a company uses can be as important to its business as the roadmap itself. In the Product Strategy Network’s roundtable meetings on product roadmapping, field-tested practices and policies are presented in detail by PSN Members. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Make product roadmap development a regular activity – not something that is done the night before a presentation. Unless a roadmap is seen as an organic outgrowth of a standard work process, it will not drive the forward-thinking and planning that leads to higher growth.
  
• Designating a roadmap owner establishes accountability for the roadmap, helping others to know who to go to for the master roadmap, who will release it, and who manages changes to it. A clearly identified process owner – separate from the owner of the roadmap – helps to ensure that common formats, approaches and policies are used, and that the process and roadmaps improve over time. 
  
• Product roadmapping can be a process for collaborating with other product teams and business units, as well as for developing a product roadmap. Share roadmaps internally on a regular basis to identify gaps between plans, avoid duplicate efforts and improve communications. 
  
• A product roadmap needs to be believable if it is to be a useful management tool. Involve key stakeholders – marketing, development, operations, and product management. Add layers on your roadmap with the main elements from each of these plans. This will help ensure that those items which influence the feasibility of your roadmap are taken into account. 
  
• Secure staff buy-in to the roadmap through participation rather than relying on top-down enforcement to achieve compliance. A roadmap’s inherent credibility rather than the hierarchy behind it is what gives it the power to keep a team on track. 
  
• A roadmap that is not current, isn’t accurate. Updating the roadmap through a managed process that includes other stakeholders helps to maintain the realism and usefulness of the roadmap. If you use a stage-gate type of product development process, update and review the roadmap at every gate. If your company is young or creating a new, innovative product, roadmap updates can be as frequently as once a week.
  
• At least once each annual budgeting cycle, match the resources and supporting capabilities against the roadmap. 
  
• Distinguish between product roadmaps for internal and external audiences, and use the internal roadmap as the master source. Version numbers or dates can be used to help manage the changes and distribution of roadmaps. 
  
• Create a common way to capture and organize essential planning data behind the roadmap including key plans, objectives, priorities, and relationships between the information. You’ll gain a useful tool for making and defending decisions. 

Read more Quick Tips featuring product roadmapping:

Managing risks when sharing product roadmaps

Benefits of sharing your product roadmaps

 

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