Product Roadmap

Creating a product roadmap from scratch should not be seen as a daunting task. It is a great opportunity to set out what the goals are going to be for your product range in the short-term and long-term. In this post I’ll clarify a creation process for product roadmaps starting from the very beginning.

When creating roadmaps for completely new product ranges you need to begin by gathering as many new ideas as possible around product lines and technologies. This can often be done brainstorming sessions or books. If your company has been going for any period of time you may also have customer support information, or request feedback which can also feed into these range of ideas.

The product manager needs to organize all of these ideas according to what markets they could potentially target. Your business development strategy will already set out growth plans for the company and which markets it plans to target so the roadmap should try to focus on one or two key markets.

The product manager then needs to start defining individual products for each market that incorporate these new ideas. Research has to be done as regards the size of each of these markets on a local and global scale and some attempt made to establish penetration rates and the potential return on investment. It is important to also see what competition already exists in this sector as this may preclude entry if there is already a large monopolistic incumbent.

The product roadmap can then be clearly set out for one or two lines and incorporate short-term goals and also some long-term opportunities. Your engineering teams need to be involved at this stage to assist with any architectural decisions or ideas you might have around building components or foundation elements within the product that could facilitate multiple product lines at a later stage.

All that is left to do is to review the product roadmapping by your colleagues and peers and then factor in changes over time. You may want to consider product roadmap software to assist you in your efforts, too. The software can help to keep everything organized as you move through the process.