Product managers have many responsibilities and one of those responsibilities could be to create a product roadmap.
A product roadmap is the long-term strategy for a product.
It is used by the product team to become aligned with the new product capabilities and features.
It also includes the planned development strategy and timelines.
So how do you create a product roadmap ?
In order to create a product roadmap you have to complete the following steps :
- Identify the organization’s high-level objectives: the first step is to identify the organizational objectives. These objectives are the basic organizational business needs and they would guide you on what the organization would like to accomplish to attain its goals.
- Decide which customer segment to focus on: once you have identified the organization’s objectives, you have to narrow these objectives to the particular customer segment that your product would cover. Identifying the right customer segment would help narrow the scope of your product and keep you focused. Based on the business need the customer might be internal or external.
- Identify the customer needs and find ways to fulfil those needs: Once you have identified the right customer segment, then you would have to identify the customer needs that you would like to fulfil. If the customer’s needs are not identified, then you cannot find the right product features which would fulfill those needs.
- Prioritize the product features: Once the customer needs have been identified, then you can create a list of those needs as features that the product would need to have. These features would help you define the minimum viable product (MVP). These features list would then be prioritized using the MOSCOW method to arrange them in order of importance.
- Create a timeline of features and highlight dependencies: Once you have identified and prioritized the product’s features, you would have to create a project plan which would identify the product features that should be implemented, when those features should be implemented and if they have any dependencies. You might have to work with the other product team members to get the necessary information.
- Identify applicable metrics: Once the features are documented, you would have to identify metrics which would be used to measure the product’s success. An example of these metrics could be to increase brand loyalty, or increase the organizational website traffic.
Once you have all this information, you have a basic product roadmap.
You can add or remove from it based on the specific organizational need and the document would be a living document so it should be regularly updated so that it remains valid.