How to build great roadmaps
Two Key things to do before starting building Roadmap:
First
If you are new to the firm, understand your area of focus and ownership along with the key stakeholders which may impact the roadmap
Second
Understand the game, it’s all about
Problem Discovery and Prioritization
Solution Discovery and Prioritization
Ideate on what the problems need to be solved for, break down what success looks like for you, and what could be the metrics to measure your success, that way you can drive accountability throughout the product and engineering org.
Now once you know the game you are going to play, next step is to make the rules
Step 1: Understand business objectives for the Quarter/Half year/Year
- Company Goals
- Company KPIs
- Product KPIs
Step 2: What to do next?
- Get signals and validate the same — External and Internal
External: Surveys, Interviews of customers and prospective customers
Internal: Talk to the customer facing teams and stakeholders you work with
2. Try to mark the confidence on the problem statement basis your experience and feedback received.
3. Segregate the feedback in Long Term vs Short term Tactical Initiatives and also try to get the impact estimated. Make sure that the roadmap has a good mix of tactical short term and long term initiatives.
How to measure impact?
Be brutal and prioritize tasks with ROI ( low tech bandwidth and high return on company KPIs)
Cost: T-shirt Size the tasks, Delinquency or depending on the task cost can vary
Return : Impact on key KPIs
Impact: Formula * Assumption
4. Once you have shortlisted the features you would be working on for the Q/H/Y.
Next step is to align the stakeholders via circles framework -
a. Start aligning with the innermost circle, work with the Engg/DS/DE to build a Gantt chart to bring the execution into the play.
While you are building Gantt charts make sure you understand the team you are working better in terms of strengths and weaknesses. This will help you and the Engineering Manager to build and execute on the Gantt chart
b. Second circle: Work with other PMs to get alignment on the features you have shortlisted which have to be part of their roadmap too, share the impact with them and get their feedback on the T-shirt sizing for that feature.
c. Outermost circle: Now that you have alignment on the tasks with your Engg/DS/DE and other PMs. Next step is to have alignment with key CXOs, Business heads and others on the key line items you will work and the impact you will bring in.
5. After the discussion, decide on the ATL (above the line, high priority), BTL ( below the line, want to achieve but dont have bandwidth) and Backlog features ( features which need more analysis and not a priority as of now).
6. Make sure that all the line items are stack ranked ( features with higher ROI take the top seat).
7. Format everything and attach documents ( analysis, PRDs, charters etc.) for everyone to be able to access. Send the meeting invite for the roadmap presentation a week before and block for at least 2 hours depending on the area of your focus.
8. Remember to share pre-reads
9.At the beginning of the meeting, let everyone go through the roadmap once more for 10–15min and then start the meeting with learning from the last Q/H/Y.
10. Make sure you take MOM during the meeting and get back on the open action items. Once all action items are closed you have the roadmap ready.
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