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Briefly about the goals of compiling Roadmap products

What is a roadmap product?


Roadmap (literally translated roadmap) - a strategic plan that defines the result or goal, divided into stages necessary to achieve it.

The main goal of creation


Communicate clearly and distinctly to the whole team (including top management) using one document, strategic goals and product direction. In a way, it is a tool designed to improve product communications, i.e. so that the whole team has the same direction of movement.

2 important points to understand


  • Roadmap is not about decisions, but about goals
  • Roadmap is not about external, but about internal communication

What are the goals of the Roadmap?


  • Start a discussion in a team about where and how a product is moving
  • Share with management what the team is doing for the success of the company
  • Information for other departments of what is happening with the product.
  • Tell potential and current users where the product is heading.

Preparing Priorities and Gathering Information for Roadmap


1. Before the beginning of the quarter, you (product) collect 5 main priorities from these sources:

  • New ideas
  • Features for growth
  • Iterations
  • User problems (user feedback and support requests)
  • Quality improvement (technical debt, refactoring, new tools)

2. Discussion of the collected priorities with the team

3. Check the goals of the company

4. Formulate goals in the form of ideas or problems

When you have a huge backlog with goals, write down the 5 main ones and prioritize them. Move from highest priority to less. As a result, you get a list of goals ranked by priority.

Important! You should always remember that: It is better to decide the priority number 1 completely than formally make a little bit all the priorities.

Compilation of a roadmap


Divide the quarter into 2 cycles of 6 weeks and prioritize goals.
As a result, you get a strategic plan of action for the next quarter.

Tools for Roadmap


For training, I recommend doing Roadmap in Google spreadsheets or Excel.

When you feel that you are comfortable, you can choose the option that suits you, the benefit is that there are many services available:


Total


  1. Roadmap consists of specific goals that will help you implement the company's strategy.
  2. Goals are ranked by priority and have no time reference.
  3. The CA of your Roadmap is your peers and leaders, not your users.
  4. For users, you need a separate document with a description of the direction of your product.

PS The article was written as part of training at Product University.

Materials used in the preparation of the article:

Video about Roadmap from an Intercom employee

Wikipedia about Roadmap

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