Leandro Pinter started as a graphic designer. Moved into software development, consultancies and Digital Agencies. Worked on CBA, ING – Agile Delivery & Transformation and Tyro, the leading the Digital & Data engineering.
The Roadmaps were initially created to inform stakeholders when major upgrades were coming so they could plan their purchases months in advance.
The characteristics of a Product Road Map are:
- Deliverables
- Dates
- Priorities
- Ensure team’s focus on the highest business value first
- A way to see and track commitments
- Output focused
- Data’s seen as hard commitment
- Tied to Annual planning
- It implies certainty
- Misused as a release plan
- It doesn’t embrace learning
“A product Roadmap describes how you intend how you intend to achieve your product vision”
Product Roadmap Components
Company/Product Vision & Strategy
Product Vision is your high level, ultimate view of where the company or business line is going. Product strategy is a sequence of product or releases we plan to deliver on the path to realise the product vision somewhere between 3-5 years out
- Qualitative and inspiring
- Set by leadership
This is first Business Goal you have to achieve on the way to your longer term vision
- The most important challenge that will help you get closer to your vision
- Somewhere between 1-2 years out
Themes are the key areas the team decided to explore in order to achieve the Company Goals
- Hypothesis/Problem Statement – if we solve this problem or prove this hypothesis we will be closer to achieving our company goals
- Outcomes – the most important part of the roadmap – it describes quantitatively what we hope to achieve by solving this problem
Product Roadmaps
Should
- Tie to Company Vision
- Focus on delivering value
- Commit to outcomes
- Get customers excited
- Create alignment to goals
Should not
- Make promises your team can’t deliver
- Require wasteful upfront design and estimation
- Be conflated with a Release Plan
How to get started
- Understand your context
- Get buy-in from key stakeholders
- Start small and experiment
- Measure & Learn
Vision & Goals
- Tie your Roadmap to your company
- Commit to Outcomes rather than outputs
- Broad timeframes over commitment
- A Roadmap is not a Project Plan
- Empower your teams