How well are you articulating your product roadmap vision? Product managers should constantly be thinking about this, as a clear, well-thought-out vision for your product roadmap will help you align others and develop your strategic goals.
Your product roadmap vision should be heavily influenced by a top-down approach. In other words, your overarching product and company strategies should guide your roadmap creation process.
Why? Because a clearly defined product roadmap vision will make it easier to…
- Articulate the product vision to any constituency across your company, and ensure your stakeholders are on the same page before you begin developing your product.
- Clearly identify priorities and initiatives that should either be pursued or set aside because they do/don’t serve the product vision.
Presenting Your Product Roadmap Vision to Different Audiences
The way that you categorize and present your roadmap depends on quite a bit on your audience. For example, executives may think about the roadmap in terms of strategic objectives, while the engineering teams may want to view the roadmap by technologies or platforms. If you are presenting to sales executives you may need a high-level roadmap that is organized by themes rather than specific features.
Because of this need for roadmap versatility, product managers understand the value in a dedicated roadmapping software that offers custom views that can be tailored for certain audiences.
Getting Buy-In from Executives and Stakeholders
When reviewing your roadmap with executives and stakeholders, it’s essential to engage them throughout the process. When you are transparent about the decision-making and prioritization process you use, you create an environment of trust that limits disconnects. Aligning your roadmap and discussions around the goals, KPI’s, and objectives of the organization makes it more likely you’ll get buy-in from stakeholders.
