Product Roadmap

The product roadmap is a guide that sets a direction and tracks product progress.

This document should be simple and visual to be understood by everyone. It must also be adaptable as it can change regularly to adjust to the context, evolving needs, constraints, and market advancements.

The product roadmap is essential for several reasons:

• It communicates the product vision to various stakeholders (the client, users, internal teams, etc.).
• It sets a direction for the product manager and their team, and even the entire company, by clearly outlining the major steps to be implemented.
• It allows visualization of the product’s evolution in the short, medium, and long term.
• It promotes collaboration among all involved by informing them about product development, enabling everyone to know who is doing what.
• It identifies priorities in the short, medium, and long term, and allows them to be ranked.
• It identifies key risks that might impact the project and opportunities for development.
• It fits into the company’s strategy and contributes to achieving its strategic objectives.

The product roadmap is thus a guiding thread for the actions to be performed and key dates for realizing your project/product. It emphasizes the project’s key elements and their timeline.

Key steps to develop a product roadmap

Here are the 5 steps to follow to create an effective product roadmap.

1. Define your product strategy and vision

Start by describing your product simply so that everyone understands. Detail the reasons for its creation, its advantages, the problems it will solve, and how it helps achieve the company’s strategic goals. This step is necessary to build your roadmap.

2. Identify essential information to include

A product roadmap should consist of the following elements:

• Vision and objectives of the product, which should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, and Time-bound);
• Potential risks, anything that might slow down or hinder the project;
• The schedule, essential to know the main milestones, tasks, and deadlines, as well as the key dates of your product/project realization;
• Workflows for each team involved in the project (marketing, sales, finance, technical, etc.);
• Main milestones to approve, that is, the stages requiring approval to proceed;
• Launches, the dates when new features will be released;
• Features/functions, these are the new features or improvements delivered during launches;
• Status to know the project’s progress;
• Indicators (KPI), that is, how you will measure the achievement of your goals.

3. Determine main themes

Break down your product/project into several main themes (develop a fan community on social media, improve website user experience, etc.) that will help you fulfill the product vision and achieve the company’s strategic objectives.

Prioritize these themes and work on one at a time. Each theme corresponds to one or more objectives that you will achieve by completing different tasks. For example, to develop a fan community on social media, you will need to post relevant content, partner with influencers, create special offers, etc.

4. Design a timeline

Rely on the company’s current priorities to define a timeline, and thus determine which theme is prioritized over others.

5. Involve stakeholders

The product roadmap is primarily a simple and visual communication tool. Remember to involve various stakeholders so everyone can view the roadmap, understand and commit to the product, and complete tasks on time.

6. Be flexible

A product roadmap is not fixed, but it is flexible. Many factors can influence the development of a product and require you to revise your planning (market evolution, company situation, etc.). You must, therefore, be flexible and update your roadmap daily.

Use Case

A product roadmap facilitates communication and information sharing within your organization about upcoming product developments to align and coordinate the efforts of all stakeholders.

Model Content

With the Product Roadmap model, your team has a clear vision of the planned innovations throughout the year. You can add and move tasks according to encountered uncertainties and categorize them by themes and importance.

How to use this model?

Each list corresponds to an update of your product. In each list, you have a “Objectives” and “Features” section.

In the “Objectives” section, specify the aim(s) of the next release. In the “Features” section, specify the innovations that will be added to your product during the release.

You can use the task status (in progress, approved, completed, rejected) to communicate the progress on each feature.

We recommend using date fields to set a deadline for each task and assign one or more responsible parties.

The channel in your workspace can be used to communicate the major advancements of your product roadmap.