An Ultimate Guide to Product Roadmaps

An effective product roadmap is an integral part of any successful product. A product roadmap aims to identify key steps to take and when to take them. In other words, a product roadmap is a plan of action that defines the short and long-term goals of the products to be built. It is used not just in waterfall projects but is significant for agile projects too and is often used by the product owner for outlining how the product will shape up. 

The product roadmap also outlines the features that need to be prioritized for delivery and is of significance for all those involved in the product development lifecycle. A lot goes into a product roadmap including customer ideas, feature requests, internal input, and backlogs of work informing the various components of the product. 

In a nutshell, what gets included in your product roadmap should be closely aligned with the product strategy that you have already defined. In this blog, we are providing an end-to-end overview of the product roadmap and how it can be used as guidance for the product development team, and reassuring stakeholders that everything is going as a plan.

What is Product Roadmap?

A product roadmap is a visual representation outlining the desired outcomes and steps. It reflects the outcomes that you want to achieve while also showing how the product will evolve over time. 

A product roadmap is significant for product development. In cases such as app development, strategizing the product roadmap is one of the first things to ask from a mobile app development company. It can be defined as a coordination tool that communicates the high-level product strategy to everyone involved, aligning business around it. 

Product roadmap typically comes after the team finishes crafting a compelling product vision. It explains the long-term mission, and the essence of the product, including target customers, differentiating factors, and more. 

Several parts of the product development roadmap include:

1. Lanes: division of responsibilities (e.g. team assignments)
2. Themes: high-level projects (e.g. working on third-party integration)
3. Bars: tasks to progress through within themes (e.g. creating an integration with salesforce)
4. Timeline: dates or timeframes to finish objectives (e.g. between the months of January and April)
5. Legends: visual cues explaining different purposes of the roadmap (e.g. color filters to show the purpose of goals)
6. Metrics: ways of measuring progress (e.g. percentage of phase II finished)

Why Product Mapping is Significant for Product Management?

Product managers depend on roadmaps for all kinds of scenarios. It can be used to manage the launch of a new product, for enhancements to an existing one, or even for updates to an internal application for the organization. Once the product managers establish a healthy product road mapping process and culture at the organization, it can help in achieving a few things such as

Harnessing Alignment and Unity

At least 71% of the US companies are now using Agile. An agile product roadmap brings harmony to the teams, aligning everyone’s efforts toward a shared objective. It also offers clarity and establishes a unified understanding of product goals among the team.

Facilitates Decision Making

In the fast-paced world, swift and informed decision-making is extremely crucial. A product roadmap serves as a shared reference point and further enables quicker decisions that are in line with the product’s strategy.

Enhances Stakeholder Communication

By providing a clear visual summary of what to expect and when a product roadmap bridges the gap between the product managers and the stakeholders. It also encourages open and effective communication between the team.

Expedite Adaptability

In the current environment where change is only constant, cross-functional teams know it best. A product roadmap acts as a flexible guide that is able to adapt to changes in market dynamics or customer expectations. It is not a rigid plan but an evolving tool that grows with your product.

Different Types of Product Roadmaps

There are many different types to build a product roadmap, however, the type of roadmap selected should reflect the needs of the team, stakeholders, and customers. Roadmaps should be continuously adjusted throughout the lifecycle of the product based on the shifting customer needs and market demand. Here are the most common types of product roadmaps along with an explanation of what makes each of them useful:

Features Roadmap

A product features roadmap shows a timeline for the delivery of the new features and is ideal for communicating what is coming and when. This roadmap type is output driven which allows the users to set timeframes for individual features. 

Features timeline roadmaps are perfect for planning features and tracking their progress as they offer a long-distance view of how things are moving in terms of deadlines and time-bound milestones. 

Objectives Timeline Roadmap

Larger enterprises and those working in complex environments use an objectives timeline roadmap to share a zoomed-out approach with the stakeholders. An objectives timeline roadmap is an example of an outcome roadmap as opposed to an output-driven roadmap. 

This roadmap type offers broad alignment across a business in terms of product direction and it is also easy for anyone to understand. 

Release Timeline Roadmap

This form of roadmap communicates the activities that must happen before a release occurs. This type is an execution-level plan of how you plan to deliver the product and the timeframe. It offers a high-level overview of the product release to stakeholders, executives, cross-functional teams, and maybe even consumers. 

Strategy-Based Roadmap

It is a general-purpose roadmap that perhaps works best for both internal and external audiences. It also provides a high-level outline of your product, with information tied to the specific parts/components/features as necessary. 

Portfolio Roadmap

It shows planned releases across multiple products in a single view. Portfolio roadmaps are significant to provide a strategic overview of the plan and a broad view of how multiple product teams work together. 

How to Create a Product Roadmap?

The product maps should provide an end-to-end view of the project while still being concise. It is required to highlight a specific timeline, identify the projects within that timeline and include the departments tackling each project. The flexibility of using product road mapping software and working with a road mapping template makes the product road mapping process much easier as well as less time-consuming. 

Let’s walk through the steps to build a product roadmap. Also, find information in each phase of the product road mapping process.

Formulate Vision and Strategy

Clearly explaining the vision of the product or service as well as aligning with the expectations of stakeholders and customers is extremely significant for the road map timeline. In the planning stage of the product roadmap, a discussion must be held with customers and product teams while analyzing the market and competitors.

Gathering user persona is also helpful in extracting important information while connecting with the production team and management. Having all these perspectives will help in defining the product strategy and focusing on significant things. 

Understanding Your Audience

From internal stakeholders to prospects and customers, the format of the roadmap depends on who it is intended for.

For instance, prospects and customers will be more concerned with when the features are being released and not so much with the technical stages that go into each milestone. Developers, product managers, and product teams, on the other hand, may want a breakdown of tasks for each milestone. 

There is no one size fits all plan and the requirement to make an adaptable product roadmap that provides specific details for each audience might rise. However, this doesn’t mean creating separate roadmaps for each audience but using the best product roadmap tools that highlight the most significant elements of each department. 

Picking a suitable format

As already discussed, the format will change depending on who you are showing the roadmap to. Developers will benefit from a feature-based roadmap, while the executives or board members will want to see key deliverables and outcomes.

One of the relevant examples is that the customer doesn’t want to details about the internal processes, instead, they will demand to see the benefits of new features or track progress towards certain goals. 

Identifying Metrics

In the roadmap design process, metrics will help with tracking progress and seeing the bigger picture. Depending on the purpose of the roadmap, you may want to choose metrics that are more focused on the customer’s needs or the business’s needs. Either way, metrics will assist in tracking progress and relay important successes to your product team.

Keeping it at High Level

The product plan should provide a broad overview. People should be able to look at it at a glance and immediately understand what is happening, where, and why. The team should also aim to regularly update the roadmap, as the product is always changing and requires coming up with new features and goals. This information needs to be communicated via product roadmap.

Tools for Product Roadmaps

Around 45% of product launches are delayed by at least one month. There is an array of product roadmap software on the market. However, when it comes to creating a roadmap, there are several things that should be considered. Here is a brief description of the best test management tools for product roadmap along with the details of how the roadmap works. Some of the best available product roadmaps are mentioned below:

Asana

It offers many convenient functionalities and one of them is the roadmap tool. You can easily visualize roadmaps with a calendar or a timeline view and sort by priority, category, or person assigned. You can also use the portfolios option for combining several roadmaps to see the high-level picture of the company. 

Airfocus

Airfocus comes with an intuitive and user-friendly roadmap builder that is highly convenient for working with an outcome-based roadmap. The next cool feature is consolidating various roadmaps into a one-view roadmap which is useful particularly for cross-functional teams as it helps to see a common aim. After the work is done, you can easily share and export your roadmap to the collaborators. 

Jira

It is one of the core tools and perhaps one of the best tools for product roadmaps. With Jira, you can work on child issues, and epics, filter, assign dates, and change views. Jira also has useful export options. It is worth highlighting the attractive visual form and user-friendly flow. 

Productboard

This tool offers a great road mapping experience. With Productboard, an interactive visualization of the prioritized plans can be easily created and they can be easily shared with colleagues across organizations. 

What are Some Product Roadmap Examples?

A product roadmap is a high-level summary of how the product will evolve, including the functionality planned to build, challenges, features, and the long-term business goals that it will help in achieving. Here are some product roadmap example that will help in understanding the detailed idea:

Software Product Roadmap

Software product roadmap is a blanket term for any high-level document. A software product team uses it to plan their development efforts, decide which of the features to build, track releases, and cooperate on product development. It is essentially an umbrella term for all kinds of product roadmaps, including release plans, sprint roadmap, etc. 

Release Plans

A release plan is a blueprint where a product team documents and tracks the features they plan on launching in an upcoming product release cycle, which usually lasts a quarter. In comparison to a product roadmap, a release plan is more of a short-term planner, while the latter serves as the nerve center where all the planning for the product development process happens on a long-term basis. 

Sprint Planning Roadmaps

It is typically used by the product teams that work with the agile methodology for app development method. It focuses on planning the features a team intends to deliver during future sprints. It assigns each action item to a  team member and serves as a source of truth for the agile product management team. 

Feature Timeline Roadmaps

This form of product roadmap uses a Gantt charter to help the product teams track work-in-progress against a timeline. It helps in assigning a timeline to your action items and visualizing the features that you are working on against how long you have spent on it and how much time is left. 

Objectives timeline roadmaps

An objectives timeline roadmap tracks the completion of a target against the time window allotted. It helps the product team in determining if they need to ship faster or extend their timeline. An objective timeline roadmap tracks the progress of a company’s big-picture goals and the reason why the company is building those features in the first place. 

How Appventurez Can Help with Product Roadmap Development?

Product roadmaps are vital for the product development teams. It helps them in tracking progress and aligns the organization’s vision across short-term and long-term goals on each project. The tool is not just restricted to the usage of new products but is also essential for outlining product upgrades or revisions. 

At Appventurez, our top app developers not only provide advanced app development services but also facilitate crafting a product roadmap strategy. We extend our services by transparently conveying information, and outlining the vision, direction, and priorities for a specific period. 

Creating a product roadmap involves planning, building, and presenting. Connect with us for a comprehensive product roadmap and experience the innovative way of introducing your product in the market.