What is the purpose of the Roadmap?

• Turn the strategy into an actionable plan
• Discussion
• Alignment
• Communication (both internal and external)

How to craft the Roadmap?

• The roadmap is the list of upcoming features or initiatives prioritized by the most impactful and cost-effective ones that align with the Strategy and will most likely move the needle the most in order to reach the defined Metrics
• Before creating the roadmap itself there is a need to collect all relevant ideas and feedback (see Product feedback tools) into a single “Bucket List”, which include:
  • Requirements mentioned in RFPs
  • Won/Lost deals reasons
  • Prospect requests
  • Customer requests
  • NPS results
  • Ways to fulfill unmet metrics
  • User reviews
  • Social media
  • Support tickets
  • Churn reasons
  • Brainstorming ideas
  • Potential Patents
  • Feedback from different departments in The Company
• Associate each idea with the most relevant customer need as identified in the Customers Research
• Prioritize the ideas that align with the Strategy, by using one of the Prioritization frameworks
• Estimate each idea:
  • Allow RnD to estimate if possible
  • Use T-Shirt sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL)
• Estimate the RnD capacity (total T-Shirt sizes) for ideas per quarter
• Build the actual roadmap based on the prioritized list of ideas, their respective effort, and RnD capacity
• The roadmap should be built either as Now, Next, Later, or as a quarterly roadmap, preferably as a four-quarter rolling roadmap (each quarter plan an additional quarter)

What are possible tips for building and maintaining the Roadmap?

• Keep it clean and readable
• It is possible to manage a simple roadmap in a simple spreadsheet, but for more complicated roadmaps it is advised to use a Roadmap management tool
• It should be possible to explain the roadmap:
  • Adjust the roadmap presentation according to the audience (use storytelling)
  • Remember that the roadmap is just the tactics, so first explain how it relates to the vision and strategy
  • For each idea, start with the "press release" (how it will be communicated to customers)
• A roadmap is not set in stone
• Update the roadmap each quarter according to progress, updated capacity and re-evaluation of ideas