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If you’re reading this, you likely want to learn the why, how, and when of product roadmaps.
This blog post aims to offer a comprehensive guide covering all the key aspects of implementing, maintaining, and improving your own product roadmaps.
We’ll cover:
Let’s begin.
A product roadmap is a strategic plan that outlines a product’s direction, priorities, and progress over time.
Think of it as a visual guide that helps everyone in the company understand where the product is headed and why. It's a communication tool that connects the dots between the company's goals and the product team's day-to-day work.
Companies will want to use product roadmaps because they:
A product roadmap is a multi-layered plan that combines different elements to guide your product's development. Let's break down the six core components:
Your roadmap starts with your product's 'north star,' which includes its vision and strategy. The vision is the aspirational long-term goal of where you want your product to be. The strategy is the plan to get there — the key approaches you'll take to achieve that vision.
Example: A fitness app's vision could be "to empower everyone to live a healthier life." Their strategy might focus on personalized workout plans, community challenges, and nutrition tracking.
Goals and objectives detailed in a product roadmap will break down your strategy into specific, measurable targets. Goals are broader outcomes you want to achieve, while objectives are the concrete steps you'll take to reach them.
Example: A goal might be "increase user engagement." Objectives could be "boost daily active users by 15%" or "increase average session length by 5 minutes."
This is where a product roadmap helps you get into the nitty-gritty of what you'll build. Features are the specific functionalities or improvements you'll add to your product, while initiatives are broader themes of work that encompass multiple features.
Example: A feature might be "add a social sharing option for workouts." An initiative could be "enhance the social aspects of the app."
The timeline plots out when you expect to release different features or complete initiatives. Milestones are key checkpoints along the way — major achievements that mark significant progress. Roadmaps act as a cheatsheet, reminding everyone how things are progressing.
Example: A milestone could be "launching the beta version of the new social features" or "reaching 100,000 active users."
A roadmap isn't just about what you'll build — it's also about how you'll make it happen. A sturdy roadmap will detail how you’ll manage your resource allocation. Roadmaps should outline the budget, team members, and other resources needed for each phase of development.
Example: This could involve assigning specific developers to work on certain features, budgeting for marketing campaigns, or securing partnerships for integrations.
How will you know if your product is on track? Metrics and KPIs are the quantifiable measures you'll use to track progress and assess how well your product and its features are performing. A robust roadmap should include which exact metrics should be tracked and how.
Example: Metrics could include "user acquisition rate," "churn rate," or "average rating in app stores."
As stated earlier in this article, product roadmaps come in all shapes and sizes. Let’s take a look at the types of product roadmaps you’ll likely encounter:
Strategic roadmaps provide a high-level overview of the product's long-term vision and direction. They focus on key initiatives, goals, and milestones that align with the overall business strategy.
Strategic roadmaps are essential for communicating the product's overall vision and direction to executives, investors, and other stakeholders.
Release roadmaps communicate the specific features and functionalities that will be released in upcoming versions or updates. They include detailed information about each release, such as its features, target audience, and launch date.
As their name implies, release roadmaps are critical for planning and executing product releases.
Feature roadmaps provide a detailed breakdown of the features that will be developed for a specific product or service. They include information about each feature, such as its description, user stories, and technical specifications.
Feature roadmaps help break down complex features into manageable tasks and are essential for product managers, engineers, and designers who are responsible for developing and implementing the features.
Technology roadmaps outline the planned evolution of the tech stack that supports a product or service. They include information about the technologies that will be used, as well as the timeline for their adoption and implementation.
Technology roadmaps are essential for ensuring that the product's technology stack is up-to-date and meets future needs.
What do you want to achieve with your product roadmap? What are your overall business goals, and how will your product roadmap help you achieve them?
Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can start to identify the specific objectives that your roadmap will address.
It's important to get input from all of the stakeholders who will be involved in the development and execution of your product roadmap. This includes your product team, your marketing team, your sales team, and your executives.
By gathering input from different stakeholders, you can guarantee that your roadmap is aligned with the needs of the entire organization.
Once you have a clear understanding of your goals and objectives, you can start to identify the key initiatives that will help you achieve them. These initiatives should be large, strategic projects that will have a significant impact on your product.
Then you can start breaking these initiatives down into smaller, more manageable tasks. This will help you to track your progress and ensure that you are on track to achieve your goals.
After identifying your key initiatives and tasks, you can create a timeline for your roadmap. This timeline should include the start and end dates for each task, as well as any key milestones that you need to achieve along the way.
After ironing out any details in your roadmap, it is important to communicate it to all stakeholders involved in its execution. This will help to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that they are working towards the same goals.
Your product roadmap is a living document that should be regularly reviewed and updated as your plans change. This will help make sure your roadmap is always up-to-date and that it is still aligned with your end goal.
This roadmap could be visualized as a timeline with four quarters (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4). Each quarter would list the planned features and milestones. For instance:
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
The roadmap could also include a color-coding system to indicate the status of each feature or milestone (e.g., green for completed, yellow for in progress, red for delayed).
This roadmap might be presented as a Kanban board, with columns representing different release versions. Each version would list the planned features and platform updates. For example:
This roadmap could be presented as a Gantt chart, with bars representing different initiatives and their timelines. The roadmap could be divided into different sections, such as "Product," "Marketing," and "Customer service." For example:
Product
Marketing
Customer service
Now you should have a better grasp of what a product roadmap is and why having one is so important. That, however, isn’t where the journey ends.
Remember how we mentioned metrics and KPIs earlier? We said that keeping track of them is essential if you want your product to be successful.
The real power behind these metrics is you can use them to run experiments. These experiments can then shed some light on areas of your product map that need improvement and help in making it as effective as possible.
That's where Eppo comes into the frame.
Eppo is an experimentation and feature management platform that helps organizations experiment confidently with data they can trust. From advanced A/B testing to sophisticated feature flagging, Eppo puts you in control of how experiments are carried out.
Here’s how Eppo can help improve your product roadmap:
Learn the basics of product roadmap planning and creation. Our full guide covers definitions, examples, and an implementation guide for your own product roadmap creation.