What is a Product Roadmap? From Plans to Purpose.
How Product Roadmaps Bridge the Gap and Fuel Success.
“A product roadmap is a tool for communication and alignment. It tells the story of where you are, where you are going, and how you will get there. It is not a project plan or a commitment. It is a strategic document.” — Bruce McCarthy
In today’s rapidly changing digital world, developing a product is more than just hard work. It’s a strategic journey requiring critical thinking, a clear sense of purpose, collaboration, and communication.
Central to this journey is the product roadmap. Sure the roadmap is a guide that delineates the product’s vision, hypothesis, outcomes, and direction, allowing teams and stakeholders to engage in the product’s progress over time.
But its most significant function is to communicate the ‘why’ — the core reason behind what you’re building. The why is what unites not just the team, but the whole company, around a shared vision.
The Journey of a Product: The Roadmap
Queue the time travel music. As I take myself back more than a decade (I won’t really admit how long) to a time when I was but a green entrepreneur who knew very little about product management, I am sitting in a non-descript gray and blue conference room at a large consumer products company. There I am, freshly dressed and looking right out of B school.
In the room are two fairly senior leaders in the product organization who know much more about product management than I do. After the normal pleasantries, although less than usual, I fire up my laptop and prepare to give my pitch for a new SaaS-based marketing tool.
I make it through two or three slides about the company, our vision, and what we are working on.
Then it happens, “Can you skip this and go right to the product roadmap?”
I panic; a roadmap, I think to myself, puzzled. Uh oh, the question I didn’t anticipate and didn’t have slides for. Who jumps right into the roadmap at the first meeting? Seasoned product managers, of course. What to do?
I ad-lib. “Sorry, I don’t have a roadmap prepared for our meeting today. Anything else you’d like to cover?”.
Silence. “Nope.” The older of the two says.
Ok. Meeting over, I thought. Or is it? Time for a big mistake.
“Even though I don’t have it prepared, I can draw it out and describe it for you,” I said.
“Ok,” the younger one says, eager for our discussion.
So I am off, drawing on the whiteboard. I include every feature and every date. And I was dead the minute I opened my mouth.
“We were hoping for something a bit different.” they both seemed to agree. “What’s the story behind the product? What are we going to get out of it, and when?”. “You are just sharing features; that’s your release plan.”
I am not digging myself out of this one, so I flip it to a conversation and start listening to what they want. What are they looking for? What are the outcomes they need? And while the first meeting didn’t go well, I returned with the strategic document they requested a week later. So now, I could share the why, the hypothesis on how, the outcomes, and more.
Thankfully I got a bit of grace from them due to my humility, and they ultimately became customers in a big way.
Lesson learned that roadmaps are not just plans. Why didn’t they talk about that in B school? The moral of the story is that if you are not prepared to talk about your roadmap, don’t.
What is a roadmap, really?
A product roadmap is a strategic communication tool. It exists to communicate our hypothesis on what a user wants in the form of outcomes, what buyers will pay for and the returns they will get, and how we are enabling the success of our company. As a strategic document, it lays out the why, how, what, when, and for whom framed around target outcomes.
It’s akin to a story that shares the product’s journey from its current state to its future state. But, unlike a story written solely by an author, a product roadmap is a dynamic narrative influenced by various stakeholders, including engineers, marketers, salespeople, and customers.
Product roadmaps are not for product managers, even though it’s true that product managers often create and maintain product roadmaps. Instead, roadmaps exist to share the vision and the story with stakeholders, driving engagement and action.
- For team members, a product roadmap provides a sense of direction, giving them an understanding of how their roles and tasks contribute to the larger objectives. It motivates them by showing how their work fits into the bigger picture.
- For executives and investors, a product roadmap provides insight into the product’s strategic vision, allowing them to see how the product aligns with the company’s broader objectives. In addition, it offers a transparent look into the product’s current status and future plans, helping them make informed decisions and ensuring the product will deliver on the company’s strategy.
- A public-facing product roadmap gives customers and users a glimpse into what’s to come, fostering excitement and anticipation while managing their expectations. In addition, it shows them that the company is invested in continuous improvement and values their feedback.
A product roadmap therefore serves as a bridge between stakeholders, aligning everyone toward the shared goal of creating a successful product.
It’s a tool that translates the complex product development process into a narrative that everyone involved can understand and rally behind.
Bottom line, a roadmap with no one interested is like a novel with no readers — pointless.
Product / Company Fit — Aligning strategy
Let’s think of your company as a big ship and your product as a smaller boat attached to it. Your company’s strategy is the path plotted by the big ship. Meanwhile, the product roadmap is like the smaller boat’s route. So it’s crucial that the smaller boat doesn’t veer off in a completely different direction from the big ship. In the same way, the product roadmap should be in line with the company’s overall strategy.
So, how do we ensure they’re heading in the same direction? First, we need to connect the company strategy to the product roadmap. But what does this mean?
Consider the significant objectives your company has. For example, your company aims to be the best in automation or achieve high growth. Whatever the end game, your company’s products should align with and help fulfill these objectives.
Here’s how to do it. When crafting your product roadmap, consider your company’s objectives. For example, let’s say your company aims to be the best in customer service. Your product should then include features to provide fantastic customer service, even if that is not the product’s core purpose. When planning your roadmap, incorporate stellar service features, demonstrating how the product supports your company’s goal.
Doing this, you’re tying your product roadmap to your company strategy. This ensures everyone — from the big ship to the small boat — moves in the same direction.
Start with the why, not the what
“Unfortunately, many product managers equate a roadmap with what to build, how to build it, and a loosely affiliated when it should be available. This is dead wrong.”
Think about a product roadmap like a GPS for your product’s journey. It’s not just about the destination (what to build), the route (how to build it), or even the estimated time of arrival (when it should be available). It’s about understanding why you’re on this journey in the first place and ensuring everyone else on the journey with you understands it too.
A product roadmap is therefore more than a checklist of features and timelines. It’s a strategic document communicating the ‘why’ behind your product. It answers questions like: Why are we building this product? Why is it important to our company? Why will it be good for our customers? A roadmap can rally your team, stakeholders, and customers around a shared vision and purpose by focusing on the ‘why.’
Let’s look at a real-life example: Microsoft’s shift towards cloud computing under the leadership of Satya Nadella. When Nadella became the CEO, he introduced a new vision: “To empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” This was not just a slogan. It was a strategic direction ultimately reflected in their product roadmaps.
Instead of just listing features and timelines, Microsoft’s roadmap outlined how their products — like the cloud computing service Microsoft Azure — would contribute to this vision. In addition, it explained the ‘why’ behind the product. As a result, the team wasn’t just building a product; they were part of a larger mission to empower individuals and organizations across the globe.
So, remember, a product roadmap isn’t about what, how, and when. It’s a document to why. The goal of a roadmap is to create a shared vision and narrative that everyone get’s behind.
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