Questions to Ask Before you Roadmap

                        

The questions above aren’t actually the right ones to be focusing on unless you can successfully (read: thoroughly) answer the following questions which are a prerequisite for any roadmapping or prioritization activity:

1. Where are you going?
2. How are you getting there?
3. Why are you going there? (And with who?)

Your product roadmap should define your product’s journey over time and highlight important milestones throughout that journey. A good product roadmap tells a story about where your product came from and where it’s headed in a way that helps your team, stakeholders, and in some cases, your customers, understand what you’re up to.

As is a prerequisite for most adventures, you’ll need to have a destination in mind, a means of traveling to that destination, and a compelling reason to embark on your journey before you can hit the road.

Don’t bother roadmapping or attempting to prioritize initiatives on your roadmap until you’ve successfully (and thoroughly) answered the three questions above, as they will provide extremely valuable guidance, which you will absolutely need throughout the course of your career. So before you begin building or prioritizing a product roadmap, take some time to answer them- soon you’ll begin to understand what the major influencers behind your product roadmap should be/are—what are the influencing factors behind every roadmap decision? And prioritization will get easier for you.

Product Vision: Where are you going?

In order to maintain focus and organizational alignment, you must establish, share, and live by a compelling product vision.

If you don’t have a destination in mind, you’re sure going to have a hard time building a map that will take you there. There’s not much point in trying to prioritize items on your roadmap if you don’t have a clear product vision. Your vision is the guiding force behind every decision you make in your product’s lifecycle; and your product roadmap is the navigation tool you’ll use to find your way; it dictates the direction your team will be going to reach that vision.

As Janna Bastow of ProdPad says, “If you don’t have your product vision, don’t bother with roadmapping. Stop right there, go back to the beginning and make sure that you understand what you guys are building towards, why you’re in this. If you don’t have your product vision, you’re either as far as you’re going to get already or you’re going to end up somewhere else completely unexpected, and you don’t want that.”

Product Metrics: How are you getting there?

You absolutely must identify your key metrics early on and then respect those metrics when making product decisions, otherwise emotional decision making can overtake rational decision making.

Once your company is moving full speed ahead toward your grand plan, you’ll discover that certain actions have a greater impact on your progress than others; some initiatives will drive your product toward where you want it to be at a faster pace than others, while some initiatives will appear to have no observable effect. Having a grasp on what these levers or metrics are should be a prerequisite to any prioritization activity.

The key metrics you monitor will vary throughout your product’s lifecycle as business needs change and priorities evolve.

For example, if your product or company is in a growth stage, metrics that measure things like Acquisition, Retention, and Referrals may be at the top of your list; and as your product matures, your priorities will likely shift to also include moving the dial on Sales and Revenue metrics and monitoring Churn (and diagnosing its cause).

You’ll want to monitor metrics every step of the way as they’ll help you identify and solve problems and make more informed roadmap decisions. Meanwhile, a keen awareness of the metrics your organization is most focused on at any given time can help you prioritize initiatives that will help move your KPIs in the right direction

“…Every business is different and if you don’t define and agree your priorities up front you risk optimising for the wrong thing, or nothing at all. Pick the 3-5 levers that you can affect and that will have an impact on your business, and then pick measures of these levers that are trackable, actionable and distinct.” says Martin Erikson, Chief Product Officer at Covester