![]() If a product manager cannot persuasively make a case for including a feature, she should not include it at all. This is why a strong product roadmap requires a clear and concise strategic rationale for including any feature or epic. What does a list of features communicate? Beyond the items on the list, not much. ![]() A communication tool that helps communicate the product’s strategy. Creating a valid product roadmap requires telling a cohesive story - showing how all of the themes, epics, and individual features will come together and result in a product that meets specific company goals.Ģ. A high-level plan, defining an overarching strategic objective and capturing the major steps planned for achieving that objective.Ī list of features alone will not capture or articulate the strategic thinking behind building a product in a specific way. But this is not the case.Īs we have stated above, the key characteristics of a roadmap are that it is:ġ. It’s not a list of features.įinally, many product managers mistakenly assume their planned list of features or epics constitutes the roadmap itself. But the tool for this will be a project management tracker, such as Trello, PivotalTracker, or JIRA. These details should be tracked and updated throughout any strategic undertaking. Many managers confuse roadmaps with the documents or software applications used to compile all of the details to complete the initiative - the individual assignments, the personnel responsible for each task, meetings scheduled to discuss specific issues or milestones, deadlines for completing each element of the project, etc. This leads to a related item that roadmaps are often confused with… It’s not a project management tracker. Roadmap planning is often the process of creating a high-level strategy out of a collection of backlog tasks and ideas.Ī roadmap, therefore, can and should work together with a backlog in the sense that the person responsible for the roadmap (typically a product manager in the case of a product roadmap) will translate its high-level strategic components into tasks that can be assigned and tracked throughout the project. A backlog is essentially a to-do list of the tasks required to complete a strategic initiative, ideally arranged according to priority. This is another very specific type of document. What a Roadmap Is Not It’s not a backlog. With this in mind, it is also worth reviewing what it is not. When it comes to understanding the role of the roadmap, perhaps the most important concept to remember is that it is a strategic document, not a document that captures all of a plan’s details. Indeed, businesses all over the world use our web-based roadmap software to create their organizations’ marketing plan, IT strategy, and others. ![]() Although we at ProductPlan generally discuss the roadmap as a strategic tool for guiding the development of products, it can be used for all types of strategic initiatives.
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