A product roadmap is an overall view of the product’s requirements and a powerful tool for planning and organizing the journey of product development. In essence, it’s a visual representation of prioritized user stories. It outlines when products are scheduled for release, and it includes a list of of the key features the product needs to deliver to fulfill the product vision. Download your free guide on, 10 Keys for the Perfect Product Roadmap and start perfecting your roadmap step by step. Have questions? We are here to help. Email us at mvp@koombea.com and we're happy to make your next product a success

1. 10 Secret
Product Roadmap Strategies
You Can’t Afford to Miss

2. Written by Kate Swanberg
10 Secret
Product Roadmap Strategies
You Can’t Afford to Miss

3. A product roadmap is an overall view of the product’s requirements and a
powerful tool for planning and organizing the journey of product
development.
In essence, it’s a visual representation of prioritized user stories. It
outlines when products are scheduled for release, and it includes a list of
of the key features the product needs to deliver to fulfill the product vision.
It’s also crucial for the success of your product - and helps you plan for
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10 secret product roadmap strategies
you can’t afford to miss
May 15, ‘15 May 22, ‘15 July ‘15
IR1 IR2 IR3
Features
Road Rage Ported (part 1)
Brickyard port started (strech
goal to complete)
Distributed platform demo
ALL GUIs for both games
demostrable
New features (see prioritized
list)
Demo of Beemer game
Game 1 Demo - Proof of
Viability on new platform
First two games available
(Road Rage and Brickyard)
First two games available
(Road Rage and Brickyard)
Features
Road Rage Completed
(Single user)
Brickyard Ported (single user)
Road Rage multiuser
demostrable
First multiuser game feature
for Road Rage
New features(seepioritizedlist)
Features
Multiuser Road Rage first
release
Brickyard Ported multiuser
demo
New features for both games
(see prioritized list)
Beemer game to E3
tradeshow?
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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It’s also crucial for the success of your product - and helps you plan for
the future. A common misconception of agile management is that it avoids
long-term planning in favor of only planning a few weeks out. But going
agile doesn’t mean you don’t have a future plan—it just means that you’re
more flexible about the path you take. Successful agile teams put a strong
focus on strategy and understand their objectives. While agile doesn’t
support highly detailed long-term plans up front, it still accounts for the
future. With agile, you outline your high-level business goals first, think
about the six-month and twelve-month plan, focus on problems over
solutions, abandon timelines, and leave room to adjust priorities as you
work towards the goals.
In short, you’re not held hostage by an outdated plan. Instead, the plan is
flexible.
A large piece of that plan is a great product roadmap.
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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It sets the scene and leaves room for innovation by providing
guidance (not lock-in) to focus on the right things, but be able to learn
and adjust along the way.
It aligns the development team, marketing team, and stakeholders
and is just detailed enough so that everyone can derive actionable,
well-timed next steps.
It identifies sources of customer value creation that needs to be
covered.
It sets the pace for continuous innovation to consistently and
sustainably deliver customer value.
It motivates and inspires the team.
Now that we know what the product roadmap is and what it should
achieve, let’s look at the 10 keys to creating a great one.
What does a good product
roadmap achieve?
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

6. The product vision is the first piece of a great product roadmap - and it
starts with a product vision statement. The vision statement must
articulate the goals for the product. It’s a quick summary that
communicates how your product supports the organization’s strategies.
Think of the vision as the overarching, shared goal that guides the product
development team. In order to create the product, the development team
must understand what the product needs to accomplish.
One of the best ways to create your product vision is in the form of an
elevator pitch. So, you can craft it with this format:
For (target customer)
Who (statement of the need or opportunity)
The (product name) is a (product category)
That (key benefit, compelling reason to buy)
Unlike (primary competitive alternative)
Our product (statement of primary differentiation)
1. A Great Product Vision
0410 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

7. This is the path with which your team will fulfill the product vision. The
product strategy is essential for decision making—every decision you
make should align with the product vision.
So, how do you define a good product strategy?
Make sure it captures the target group, the needs addressed, the key
features of the product, and the desired business benefits. Keep in mind
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When you create the vision statement, make sure you address these three
things:
Who the target customer is
What needs the product will address (highlight the most critical needs)
How the product measures up to the competition, and what
makes it stand out
Another helpful tool for creating your product’s vision statement is Roman
Pilcher’s Product Vision Board.
2. The Right Product Strategy
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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that the product strategy is just one path to the product vision, and it may
turn out to be wrong. So don’t stick to the original strategy at all costs—be
prepared to shift, or pivot if necessary.
Your roadmap is useless if the people required to develop, market and sell
the product don’t buy into it. The best way to get this buy-in is to involve
the key stakeholders in the creation of the roadmap.
So, put at least a few hours aside and bring everyone together for a two to
four hour workshop. This way, you can leverage their ideas and knowledge
to create a more realistic and actionable roadmap.
Focus on getting consensus on features, requirements, plans, and product
goals.
In terms of the product goals, these can be metric driven goals (e.g.
increase conversions by x%) or more general (e.g. mobile first). Once you
get a consensus from the product team and stakeholders, you can tie
product and feature decisions back to those goals as you move forward
with the product.
3.
Get Buy-In from the Team and
Key Stakeholders
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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Themes are logical groups and requirements at their highest levels.
Features are parts of the product at a very high level. They describe a new
capability the customer will have once the feature is complete.
The way to execute on the requirements is by transforming them into
effective user stories. User stories are the bread and butter of agile
development—and they are the main deliverable for product managers. A
user story is a short description of a customer need. It’s a high level
definition of a requirement, containing just enough information (usually
only a few sentences) so that developers can judge the amount of time and
effort needed to implement it.
You should be able to fit most of your user stories into a simple structure
like this:
“As a [role], I can [product feature], so that [reason].”
For example: “As a consumer, I want shopping cart functionality to easily
purchase items online.”
Each user story should be small enough so that it can be coded and tested
within an iteration (ideally, just a few days).
4.
Identify Your Product Requirements
and Create Effective User Stories
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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After you identify the product requirement features and transform them
into user stories, it’s time to group them into themes. A theme is a
collection of related user stories.
An easy analogy is to pretend you have a bunch of DVDs. You have DVDs
of all kinds - James Bond movies, the Harry Potter saga, sports movies,
etc.
Now let’s say, on your DVD rack, you arrange all the James Bond movies
together. In this case, that grouping of James Bond movies would be a
theme.
The reason you group user stories into themes is because it allows you to
better focus on different areas of the product. For example, the theme of
the next two agile sprints might be “job search” after which it might be
something else, like “apply for a job” for instance. Each of these themes
contains many user stories.
Themes allow you to organize your roadmap in a way that describes value
to customers and other stakeholders. They help keep your roadmap at a
high level, especially for those long-term initiatives.
5. Group User Stories into Themes
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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Once you’ve grouped the features into themes, you need to estimate and
order the product requirements. But before you can order the requirements,
you must first estimate a score to represent the value and effort of each
requirement.
You must also be aware of dependencies. A dependency is a requirement
needed before another requirement. Using the James Bond example, you
wouldn’t watch the third James Bond movie before you watched the second.
In terms of scoring, use a prioritization or scoring framework to guide the
conversation between the development team and stakeholders.
Agree on a set of primary business drivers for the product. For example:
1) Attract new users, 2) Retain existing users, and 3) Lower support costs.
Assign relative weights to each of the business drivers based on importance.
For example:
Attract new users – 50%
Retain existing users – 30%
Lower support costs – 20%
6.
Estimate and Order the Product’s
Features
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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A chart like this allows you to generate a numeric score for each feature.
Once you agree upon and assign a numeric score for every feature, order
the features in descending order. This will be your product backlog.
Your roadmap needs a realistic timeframe, where you can anticipate the
growth of your product without resorting to speculation. A 12 month time-
frame can work well, but you can also choose a time increment like a cer-
tain number of days, weeks, months, or quarters (or longer, if necessary).
Weight
Feature
x
y
z
Theme
x
y
z
Retain
existing
Lower
costs
3
4
3
Attract
users
3
4
3
3
4
3
Total
Score
3
4
3
50 30 20
7. Choose a Logical Time Frame
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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When creating the product roadmap, one thing to focus is on is prioritizing
date vs. goal. Ask yourself if meeting a date or achieving a goal is more
important for your product’s success. If the goal is more important, then
start with the goal and estimate when the goal can be achieved. If you’re
constrained by dates, then start with the date and figure out realistic goals
you can achieve in that timeframe.
For example, the first major release may have to achieve a goal such as
acquisition, while the subsequent releases are launched at fixed dates.
A goal-first approach is important with the product roadmap. Features
should be derived from a corresponding goal. They are your pathway to
achieve that goal.
For example, if your goal is to improve the user experience (UX), then a
feature might be “intuitive, hassle-free user registration.”
8. Prioritize Date vs. Goal
9. Goals Over Features
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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The goal-first approach is crucial, especially when it comes to adding fea-
tures to the product roadmap. When adding a feature, there should be a
goal that supports that feature. If not, you can either change the roadmap,
adjust an existing goal, add a new goal, or drop the feature.
For example, the first major release may have to achieve a goal such as
acquisition, while the subsequent releases are launched at fixed dates.
It’s not just enough to have a goal. You must also know how to measure
progress towards and eventual achievement of that goal. That’s where key
progress indicators (KPIs) come into play.
Your KPIs are the metrics you’ll use to determine the progress and success
of the goal.
If your goal is to acquire more users, your metrics may relate to traffic,
search results, and number of downloads. If your goal is to get more
in-app purchases, your metrics may relate to session length, product rev-
enue, active users, etc.
10. Select Helpful Metrics and KPIs
10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies

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This white paper has discussed the keys to a great product roadmap. For
help creating your roadmap, and/or transforming your idea into a great
digital product,
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10 Secret Product Roadmap Strategies