How To Build A Highly Effective Product Roadmap

©2006-2014 280 Group LLC. All rights reserved. May not be distributed without prior written permission
©2006 280GroupLLC. All rights reserved. May not be distributedwithout prior writtenpermission
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Today’s Speaker
Presenter:
Brian Lawley
CEO & Founder
@brianlawley
contact@280group.com
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+1.408.834-7518
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About This Webinar
• Teaches best practices for creating roadmaps
• Included in 280 Group Product Roadmap Toolkit™
• Additional templates & files in the Toolkit:
– 14 types of Roadmaps
– 75 roadmap templates
• Quarterly
• Yearly
• Combined
– Feature prioritization matrix
– Project prioritization matrix
– Solution component matrix
– Best practices white paper
• $99 single user license
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Agenda
• About the 280 Group
• What is a Roadmap?
• Types of Roadmaps & Uses
• 8 Step Process to Create a Product Roadmap
• Prioritizing Multiple Projects
• Best Practices
• All examples in presentation are fabricated
• Templates for all roadmaps available in 280 Group Product Roadmap Toolkit at www.280group.com
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Brian Lawley: CEO & Founder
Thought Leadership in
Product Management Award
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The 280 Group
Silicon Valley Innovation
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Mission
We transform organizations and
individuals to perform highly
effective Product Management
based on our innovative and easily
adopted Optimal Product Process™
framework.
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Optimal Product Process™
• >200 years experience
• Any development methodology
• Flexible & customizable
• Strategic/Tactical
• All companies
• Any industry
Approval to fund
business planning
Approval to fund
development
Product ready
for field testing
Product and
organization ready
On-going
marketing ready
New version or
retire completely
Marketing Plan End of Life PlanLaunch Plan
Beta Plan
Market Strategy Document
Roadmap Document
Product Description Document
Market Needs Document
Business Case Document
PM + Engineering (Agile,Hybrid,Waterfall)
PlanConceive Qualify
Run Beta/Pilot
program
Write launch
plan
Release product,
gather feedback
Write marketing
plan
Discover
opportunities
Develop Launch Maximize
Validate product/
market fit
Create roadmap
and strategy
Solidify business
plans
Solidify
develop plans
Write beta plan Support sales
Communicate
EOL
Retire
Plan sunset
or replacement
Perform
post mortem
Deliver final
documents
Plan EOL and
next release
Develop preliminary
documents
Perform post
mortem
Test messaging
and positioning
Final
feature list
Run/monitor
marketing
Phases and
Activities
Exit Criteria
Marketing
Product
Product
Management
EXECUTIONSTRATEGY
The OPP framework is completely customizable and
flexible, making it easily adopted by any company
regardless of size, maturity, or development methodology.
Development – Agile, Hybrid,Waterfall
Documentation – None, Lightweight, Formal
Maturity – Startup, Small/Medium, Enterprise
Optimal Product Process™ (OPP)
Optimal Product Process Methodology © 280 Group, 2011-2014
Source: Conceive to Retire from AIPMM Product Management Body of Knowledge®
(ProdBOK®
)
Optimizing Product Management™

Complete solutions
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Product Manager
and advance your
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phase
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• Assessments & Custom Optimization Plans
• Consulting & Contractors
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• Certifications
• Templates
Comprehensive Solutions for
Optimizing PM Teams
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• $399 PM Office Pro license
• Eight Toolkits - $99 per single user license
– Product Management Lifecycle Toolkit™
– Product Launch Toolkit™
– Product Roadmap Toolkit™
– Feature Prioritization Toolkit™
– Beta Program Toolkit™
– Developer Program Toolkit™
– Product Reviews Toolkit™
– Competitive Analysis Toolkit™
• Contents
– Templates and Samples
– Narrated presentations
– White papers
Product Management Office™
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Why a Roadmap?
• Problems
– Internal groups make unreasonable demands
– Sales losing a large deal
– Analysts/press question company direction
– Engineering needs guidance
– Executives pitching investors
• Uses for Roadmaps
– Communicate vision, plans & credibility
– Assist with internal planning & setting priorities
– Selling tool for customers & partnerships
– Create FUD in marketplace
– Obtain funding
We Need a Product
Road Map!
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The Challenge
• Wide variation in definitions
• Even wider variation in uses
• Often created reactively not proactively
• Source of much trouble if not careful
• Formats
– PowerPoint
– Excel
– Word
– Visio
– MS Project
– html
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Poll: Do You Use Standardized
Roadmaps at Your Company?

What is a Product Roadmap?
n 1: a detailed plan or explanation to guide you in
determining a course of action; Often used to support
strategic or long-term planning
n 2: a high-level sketch of where the company’s products
are going to give internal and external constituents the
ability to plan accordingly
Product Roadmap
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Types Of Roadmaps
• Market & Strategy
• Visionary
• Technology
• Platform
• Product
– Internal
– External
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Market & Strategy Roadmap
Year One Year Two
Markets Healthcare Financial
Manufacturing
Partner XYZ Company
Build In-
House
2.X Release
Acquire Data analytics
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Visionary Roadmap
Retail Music Stores Vanishing
All Media From Anywhere
Complete Digital Living Room
VisionOfTheFutureIndustryTrends
Peer to Peer Sharing
Ipod & portable video devices
2006 2007 2008
Movies & TV available on demand
Wi Fi & Connectivity Widely Available
Major Labels Disappear
3G Networks Pervasive
Ipod Hi Fi & DVR

Technology Roadmap
Vista
QuickTime 8
Windows Media 10
External/Industry
Factors
InternalTechnology
Development
Vista-UI components
DirectX 10
MPEG5
Custom codec
Maintenance/XP rev
Vista Optimized Product
Re-architected foundation
2006 2007 2008
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Technology Across Products
2006 2007 2008
Product 1 Codec New Architecture
Product 2 Codec
Vista UI
Product 3 Vista UI New Architecture
Product 4 Codec New Architecture
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Platform Roadmap
2006 2007 2008
Platform
Products
Tools
* Vista B1
* Vista B2
* Vista FCS
* Office Vista
* Office Online
* Vista SDK 1
* Vista SDK 2
* Visual Basic
* Briefings
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Product Roadmaps
Internal
External
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Eight Step Process for Creating a
Product Roadmap
1. Decide detail level & time to spend
2. Assess competitive moves, market and tech trends
3. Gather & prioritize requirements
4. Decide on the timeframe
5. Choose organizing strategy
6. Build Internal Roadmap
7. Get buy-in, finalize
8. Create External Roadmap
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Step 1: Detail Level & Time to Spend
• How much time do you want to spend?
• What is the shelf life
• How important is the roadmap?
(loose plan or firm commitment)
• Choose appropriate method:
– Quick & Dirty
– Mid-Level Analysis
– Full PLC solution
(FeaturePlan, Accept, Telelogic, Vistarr)
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Step 2: Competitive, Market, Tech Trends
2007
1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q
Competitive
Market
Tech
Trends
* Competitor 1 expected release
* Competitor 2 expected release
Early Adopter Phase
Widespread adoption
* New technology available to leverage
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Step 3: Gather & Prioritize
Requirements
• Ideally have MRD/PRD/Backlog for next release
• Gather additional requirements
• Goal is to capture the universe of possibilities
• Scorecard/Prioritization Matrix
• Other techniques
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Feature Prioritization Matrix
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Other Prioritization Techniques
• Kano Analysis
• Four Quadrant
• Buy a Feature
• MosCOw
• Value Cost
See 280 Group Feature Prioritization Toolkit™ to
learn about these techniques and others

Step 4: Decide on Timeframe
• Quarterly
• Yearly
– One
– Two
– Three
– Four
– Five
• Combination
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Step 5: Choose Organizing Strategy
• Themes
• Golden Feature
• Timed Releases
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Theme Strategy
• Find logical groupings of high scoring items
• Give groupings a “Theme” name
• Example: Performance
– Launch time
– Screen refresh or data retrieval
– Time to update database
– UI responsiveness
• Bug fixes/clean up can be a theme
• Themes help resist feature creep
• May want to use sub-themes, but it weakens the
strategy
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Theme-Based Internal
Roadmap
Code Name
200820072006
Code Name Code Name
Theme
•Feature 1
•Feature 2
•Feature 3
•Feature 4
•Feature 5
Theme
•Feature 1
•Feature 2
•Feature 3
•Feature 4
•Feature 5
Theme
•Feature 1
•Feature 2
•Feature 3
•Feature 4
•Feature 5
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Golden Feature Strategy
• Choose one major feature per release as the “Golden
Feature”
• Can’t ship without the Golden Feature
• All Marketing and development focus is around this
• Minor bug fixes and features can be added but are
optional/nice to have
• Examples:
– Revamped UI
– Launch performance
– Automatic save/recovery of documents
• Golden Feature also helps resist feature creep
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“Golden Feature” Internal
Roadmap
Code Name
200820072006
Code Name Code Name
Golden Feature
•Minor Feature 1
•Minor Feature 2
•Minor Feature 3
•Minor Feature 4
•Minor Feature 5
Golden Feature
•Minor Feature 1
•Minor Feature 2
•Minor Feature 3
•Minor Feature 4
•Minor Feature 5
Golden Feature
•Minor Feature 1
•Minor Feature 2
•Minor Feature 3
•Minor Feature 4
•Minor Feature 5
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Timed Release Strategy
• Driven by dates, not features
• Every quarter or six months
• Gather requirements, prioritize, include as many as
realistic
• If features miss a release they go with the next one
• Helps focus the team and relieve pressure to put
every feature into the “Next” release
• More difficult to include new features that require
significant effort
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Quarterly Timed Release
Internal Roadmap
2006 2007
1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q
Q1
Release
•Feature 1
•Feature 2
•Feature 3
•Feature 4
•Feature 5
Q2
Release
•Feature 1
•Feature 2
•Feature 3
•Feature 4
•Feature 5
Q3
Release
•Feature 1
•Feature 2
•Feature 3
•Feature 4
•Feature 5
Q4
Release
•Feature 1
•Feature 2
•Feature 3
•Feature 4
•Feature 5
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Two Year Matrix
Internal Roadmap
Q1
2007
Q2
2007
Q3
2007
Q4
2007
Q1
2008
Q2
2008
Q3
2008
Q4
2008
Code Name or
Product Name
Target Market
Major Features
or Theme
Technology
Trends
Competitor’s
Products
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Step 7: Fine Tune & Get Buy-In
• Compare against:
– Competitive
– Market
– Technology
• Internal customers
– Meeting needs
– Timing & priorities correct
• Engineering
– Feasibility & completeness
– Match for resources
– Vision
• Sales
– Customer needs
– Competitive
• Management
– Vision
– Financials
– MBOs
• Support
– Top issues & customer satisfaction
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Poll: How Often Do You Use
External Roadmaps With
Customers?

Step 8: Create External Roadmap
• Use Internal Roadmap as basis
• Remove features
– Leave Theme names or Golden Features
– Possibly keep next release features
• Put appropriate caveats
– Confidential
– Plans may change
• May not want to put specific dates
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Project Code Name
2006
Project Code Name
2007
Project Code Name
2008
Theme
•Possible Feature 1 (be vague)
Theme
•Feature 1 (be vague)
Theme
Company Confidential: Not for Distribution
Note: this is a forward-looking roadmap for product plans as of 3.2006 that may change over time
Three Year “Theme-Based”
External Product Roadmap
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Multiple Product Line Roadmaps
• Use 8 step procedure for each product line
• Gather information about all projects
• Rank projects using matrix
• Determine where the cutoff line is
• New projects/significant changes: rank again
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Prioritizing Multiple Projects
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Multiple Product Lines
(With Acquisition & End of Life)
2006 2007
Foxtrot
3.0
FoxAcq
4.0
FoxAcq
4.1
Acquired Prod
7.2
Legacy Prod
11.1
1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q
EOL
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Using Multiple Roadmaps
Together
• Start with Visionary
• Develop Competitive, Market & Tech Trends
• Create Internal
• Create External
• Compare to ensure internal & external are
consistent with the assumption in the others
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Best practices
• Collaborate early with team
• Always use code names
• Release as uneditable PDF file
• Internal = More Specific
• External = More Vague
• Don’t forget:
– International
– Minor dot releases
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Summary
• Background
• What is a Roadmap?
• Types of Roadmaps & Uses
• 8 Step Process to Create a Product Roadmap
• Best Practices
www.aipmm.com

Presenter:
Brian Lawley
CEO & Founder
@brianlawley
contact@280group.com
www.280group.com
+1.408.834-7518 x1
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How To Build A Highly Effective Product Roadmap

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