SUNDAY REWIND: Product roadmaps in five easy pieces

This week’s Sunday Rewind takes us back to a 2018 post from product leader Scott Colfer that digs into five elements that make up a good roadmap.

The five elements are, says Scott:

Context

Set the context for your product, considering things like product lifecycle stage, organisational needs, and audience. Scott says his product roadmaps often sit in several contexts – strategic, product lifecycle, team and organisational.

Value

Value (expressed in terms of outcomes for our users and our organisation) is the beating heart of a good product roadmap. It's the heart of product management itself.

Delivery

Scott says that focusing exclusively on features, cost schedules, and deadlines is one of the biggest product roadmap anti-patterns. Therefore, a document that lists solutions by their deadline is not a product roadmap, it is a delivery schedule or project plan. But delivery is an important part of product strategy so there’s a case for it to figure in some form on a roadmap.

Confidence

Scott says that confidence measures are a powerful tool for discussing options while managing expectations. Confidence is influenced by a range of factors and is context specific. He suggests using standard red/amber/green ratings to help manage expectations.

Age

Scott suggests setting expectations around the frequency with which you need to review strategy.  He aims to review his roadmaps every month (even if it’s to gain confidence that it’s still fine), and to give a more considered review every quarter.

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