Product Roadmap Strategy Workbook

Product Roadmap Strategy Workbook Feeling overwhelmed with your product roadmap strategy? Not sure where to start? Here’s an actual product roadmap strategy example.

W O R K B O O K

2PRODUCT ROADMAP STRATEGY WORKBOOK

This detailed workbook walks you through the steps for the 7 phases of

aligning your team around the product roadmap strategy and gives you key

questions and example answers for each phase. Share the final results with

your team and stakeholders for better company alignment.

7 Stages of Product Roadmap Strategy:

01 Roadmap Objectives02 Defining Your Roadmap Configuration03 Roadmap Settings04 Roadmap Standardization05 Consolidating the Roadmap06 Other Capabilities to Consider Using07 Capturing Details for Your Release Containers


Example Answer

Company X’s product roadmap represents the product themes and goals

that best deliver towards the strategic objectives, as well as the sequential

order in which we plan to deliver the desired outcomes.

●Company X’s product roadmap is organized according to:

• ●Platforms (e.g. MC2, .Core/CTX, Connect)

• ●Products (e.g. WhatsApp, ABC, Flow, Chat Desk)

• ●Special projects (e.g. Alchemy, Dara, Rubicon)

Company X’s product roadmap incorporates the roadmaps from product

management, software development, network and infrastructure, and

product partnerships.

●Company X’s product roadmap is used by product managers to organize,

prioritize, and present their product roadmaps to stakeholders in a visual,

non-technical manner.

●Company X’s product roadmap does not replace Jira and Confluence as

the systems for product requirements, backlogs, and user stories.

Stage 1: Roadmap Objectives

What does our product roadmap represent?


Example Answer

The following groups represent our primary audience(s) and the purpose

of the roadmap is to help these teams understand our product strategy and

plans to deliver against that strategy.

• ●Product, Development, & PMO ●• Sales

• ●Marketing ●• ExCo

Example Answer

Bi-weekly minor updates (aligned with current 2-week sprints)

Monthly in preparation for a monthly roadmap review forum with exec team.

Example Answer

Monthly

How often will you be presenting your roadmaps to internal and

external audiences?

Who are we communicating our product roadmap to?

How often do you see your team updating their roadmaps?


Stage 2: Defining Your Roadmap Configuration

Standardizing different elements of your roadmap with high-level concepts

will help deliver a clear message as you consolidate multiple roadmaps into

a portfolio view.

New roadmaps should be created with the following settings:

Tip: Make a copy of “reference roadmap” to jumpstart the creation

of a new roadmap following Company X standards.

Example Answer

Bar and font size: Condensed

Start date: Current month; End Date = Current month + 24 (2 year roadmap)

Months to display: 12

Color palette: (from the company’s design style guide). For consistency in

look & feel, be sure to always use the “additional colors” palette.


Stage 3: Roadmap Settings

Timeline

Layout

2 years

Months and quarters

Timeline vs List View Roadmap planning: Timeline view (shows start and end dates

for each initiative)

Consolidated roadmap: List view (aligns on end dates)

COMPONENT COMPANY X EXAMPLE


How will you use the following components?

Timeline vs List View

Timeline

Layout


Stage 4: Roadmap Standards

All roadmaps have a hierarchy that allow you to tell your story to different

audiences. By standardizing and defining the items listed below, it helps tell

a consistent story across all roadmaps.


Legend

The most visually impactful aspect of your roadmap. Allows the audience

to visually identify bars/containers/milestones based on some meaning.

Product components (front-end features, back-end features, support

and ops tools, analytics, architecture and tech debt, infrastructure, etc.)

Note that “release” is a special purpose legend.

Lanes

High level categories that persist throughout the roadmap (no

dates associated).

Two lane types:

1. Products — to share with business

There must be one product-specific lane per roadmap that is

intended to contain items to be shared with business.

2. Themes — for product managers to use for planning

There are multiple lanes for the product manager to use for

planning and managing the roadmap. Standard lanes correspond

to the legends, but each product manager can also create custom

lanes as needed. Items added to theme-type lanes will not be shared

with the business.

COMPONENT + DESCRIPTION COMPANY X EXAMPLE

Product (will be shared with business)

Front-End

Back-End

Support, Ops Tools, & Monitoring

Analytics

Architecture & Tech Debt

Infrastructure


Containers

Long term initiatives or themes. A collapsible element on your roadmap

that can contain bars. Finite and can be associated with dates.

Bars

An element on your roadmap that is finite and can be associated

with dates.

Tags

Data identifiers used for sorting and view creation.

Releases. The business value of the release must be captured in the

description of the container along with other information related to

the release. Where applicable use the company’s semantic versioning

system so that the release planning in future can align with the planned

roadmap (this alignment will take a while).

Features in business language (for business lane).

Used for filtering of items to create views e.g.

• Sales visibility • Compliance

• Infrastructure • Design required

• Tech debt


Unity Portal 1.7.0

Flow 5.21.0

Sales Visibility


Milestones

Flags that represent one defined date.

Significant releases with target dates. These milestones are commercially

significant as they indicate when the product team plans to deliver a

release that is ready to take to market.

Parked Section (on Prioritization board)

Table Layout, ability to import ‘backlog’ from an outside source. Once in

the Parked Section, can be easily moved to the planned section.

We plan to use the prioritization board in the near future.

Planned Section (on Prioritization board)

Table layout, allows you to view all items planned on your roadmap.

Can easily update and move items to the prioritization board or

parked section.


Prioritization Board

Prioritize items from the planned and parked section. Ensures initiatives

align with goals & values. Rank based off benefit.


How will you weigh your bars/containers (ex: 1-5)?




Legend

Lanes

Bars

Containers

Tags

Milestones



Parked Section (on Prioritization board)

Planned Section (on Prioritization board)

Prioritization Board


Stage 5: Consolidating Our Product Roadmap

The consolidated company’s product roadmap is owned by the SVP of

Product and forms the foundation of discussion during monthly executive

roadmap review forums. We use ProductPlan’s portfolio view feature

to create a consolidated company product roadmap to share with the

business. For items to be visible on the consolidated roadmap the container

and the bar must include the “sales visibility” tag. Only items in the top lane

shaded in dark blue are pulled into the consolidated roadmap.

Consolidated Roadmap

“Published” Roadmaps

Planning Roadmaps

Prioritize Product Partnership Roadmap

Company X Product Roadmap Example

MC2

MC2

Unity

Unity

Connect

Connect

Touch

Touch

Transact

Transact

Special Projects

Special Projects

...

...

Prioritize Software Development Roadmap

Prioritize Network & Infrastructure Roadmap

Items from the software development roadmap (owned by the SW

development team), the network and infrastructure roadmap (owned by

the N&I team), and the product partnerships roadmap (owned by product

partnerships) can be brought into relevant platform and product roadmaps

through collaborative efforts and prioritization between the respective

teams and the product team.


How you will consolidate the roadmap? How do you use the portfolio view?

What’s the roadmaps purpose?

Who owns it? Any exceptions?


Consolidated Roadmap

“Published” Roadmaps

Planning Roadmaps

Prioritize

Prioritize

Prioritize

Use the following template to write out your own consolidated roadmap:


Stage 6: Other Capabilities to Consider Using

Example Answer

SSO

Yes, we need this configured before sharing outside of product

and development.

Jira Integration

Future

MS Teams Integration

Future

Special Projects

Dara, Achilles, Rubicon (Transact), Alchemy (Common), Mercury

(CMNext), SMS COGS (CMNext), Billing Automation (Common),

Visa Pay-by-Link (Rubicon), Capitec move to AWS (CMNext),

Sanctuary (Transact)

SSO

Tools + Integrations

Special Projects


Stage 7: Capturing Details for Your Release Containers

Use the following guidelines to populate the details of the release

containers. Always be mindful of the fact that these details will be visible to

a non-technical audience (e.g. sales, marketing, executives) and possibly

even customers. Do not use technical jargon and never refer to a customer

by name anywhere in the roadmap.


Example Answer

Title

Concise title that uniquely identifies the release. If regionally restricted,

mention it in the title e.g. (NG, SA).

Description

Describe what the release is about in simple business language, while

avoiding technical jargon. Mention key features of the release.

Strategic Importance

Describe why the release is important and how it supports a higher strategic

goal or objective.

Legend

Always choose “release” for a release container.

Tags

Tag with “sales visibility” to make the release visible on the business-facing

product roadmap.

Notes

Optional notes for the product manager that are not visible on the business-

facing product roadmap.

Title

USSD Launch (ZA)

USSD continues to be a widely used communications protocol in the South African market and it is ubiquitous across mobile phone handsets and MNOs. In recent years, banks and utility companies (among others) have started taking advantage of the protocol to build mobile banking and utility management applications all across the African continent. We want Company X’s world-class USSD gateway to enable our South African Enterprise customers to adopt USSD as a channel for chat banking and chat self-service.


Description

With infrastructural improvements and a well-defined client onboarding process in place, this is the official re-launch of Company X’s USSD Channel in South Africa, backed by a marketing campaign to drive awareness and generate leads for building a healthy sales pipeline for USSD.

Key Features: 1. Reliable GSM protocol enabled on feature and smartphone headsets2. Real-time interactive messaging enabled during session3. Supports messages of up to 182 characters and 2 min max session length

Notes

Release

Legend

Tags

Sales Visibility

Example Release Containers


Example Answer

Dates

Dates will auto-populate based on width of container.

Use Cases

Describe the primary use cases that the release will enable or support.

Sales Channels, Segments, Billing

Describe the sales channels, segments and billing options that the

release supports.

Product Manager | Project Manager

Who owns the requirements and delivery of this release?

Technical Teams

Which technical teams are involved in delivery of the release?

Release Version(s)

Which software releases (specific versions) is the target for the release?

Links

Provide links to more information about the release available on

Confluence, Jira, SharePoint, Asana, etc.

Use Cases

Self-Service:• Service registration• Reservations

Acquisition:• Customer acquisition and sign-up for services• Campaign management


Enterprise Sales: Large/Enterprise (postpaid only)Inside Sales: Medium/Mid-Market (postpaid only)

PM | PMO | Design Leads

PM: Matt PretoriusPMO: Thendo Sinugo (Desree Bennie)

Tech | Data | QA | Infra Leads

Infra Leads: Geoff Best

Release Version(s)

N/A (USSD Gateway already in production)

Links

USSD Solution Overview BrochureUSSD Pricing (South Africa)

Dates

2021-01-01 2021-03-05

Example Release Containers


How will you populate the following release containers?

Title

Tags

Notes

Description


Legend

ProductPlan makes it easy for teams of all sizes to build beautiful

roadmaps. Thousands of product managers worldwide–including teams

from Nike, Microsoft, and Spotify–trust ProductPlan to help them visualize

and share their strategies across their entire organization. With our

intuitive features, product managers spend less time building roadmaps

and more time shipping products.

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Product Roadmap Strategy Workbook

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Transcript of Product Roadmap Strategy Workbook