A definition of terms, and then some thoughts on what, when, how and why to roadmap, as well as whose responsibility it is to roadmap. For products, projects, and more general work efforts.
What is a roadmap?
Merriam-Webster defines a roadmap as a “detailed plan to guide progress toward a goal.” ProductPlan, a visualization tool for creating and maintaining a product roadmap (hence the name), defines a product roadmap as a “high-level visual summary that maps out the vision and direction of your product offering over time.”
That’s a big difference. A roadmap, according to the dictionary, is is a detailed plan. A product roadmap is a step removed, highlighting only the key points. Which makes sense; a product roadmap is also a visual representation of the product vision. It has to tell a story, a coherent story.
In agile product development, small slices of that story translate into sprint goals. Those slices can be chapters (full feature releases) or scenes (smaller enhancements that build into a feature, with subsequent releases).
A project roadmap is somewhere between the two. It has a specific goal, the project goal, but the details for achieving that goal, the success criteria, are in the project plan. The project roadmap shows only the milestones.
Why roadmap?
Roadmaps are communication devices. They’re a way to tell stakeholders what we’re doing, and good roadmaps make it clear why we’re on this path. One never wants to leave ones’ stakeholders asking, where are we going and why are we carrying this handbasket?
How to roadmap?
Product, project, or other, roadmaps start with a specific goal or group of goals. It is not sufficient to say, the goal of the product enhancements is to enhance the product. A product roadmap will likely have tracts, or swimlanes, showing the specific area that’s being enhanced. It should also make it clear what’s being “enhanced.” For a digital ad platform, there is likely development time dedicated in each sprint to enhancing the bidders. Smarter, better, faster bidding sounds great, but how? Infrastructure that right-sizes server power, having it expand and contract in response to demand, wherever in the world that demand is coming from, is ideal, but will just as likely take multiple iterations of the platform to get there. So a tract for bidding enhancements is expected, even required.
Depending on the project or product, there may be a swimlane for user adoption. The goal is accomplished, the feature is released, but is anyone using it? This swimlane can include data gathering, analysis of that data, and next steps to optimize. Data gathering can be as basic as putting customer surveys in play, or integrating a complex analytical tool, like Google Analytics.
What to roadmap?
During a recent contracting gig, I was asked to produce a “roadmap” of my tech writing efforts. Getting past the ask, I realized what they needed was a project plan, detailing the steps needed to accomplish the different pieces of tech writing I was to produce. The timeline on this “roadmap” (read not-a-roadmap) was broken out by quarters. There was too much detail, and no way to use the document (an Excel spreadsheet) to tell a coherent story of what was being worked on and why. I had to work backwards from analysis of JIRA stories assigned and released to get to a visual representation of my work. In other words, my project plan lead me to something more closely resembling an actual roadmap.
When to roadmap?
The short answer is, constantly. A more precise answer is, in the beginning of the effort. Modifications are made over time, as the vision/ goal or the conditions change. But the overall story of the effort needs to be communicated early in order to get buy-in from stakeholders, and to communicate with the project or product team and get their buy-in.
A project roadmap will be more static, since it’s unlikely the milestones will change significantly.
The product roadmap should continue to develop as the product vision does.
It’s also completely acceptable to decide the defined roadmap isn’t relevant, and scrape it. This can represent a business pivot or just a reconceptualizing of how to accomplish the product vision. Build the roadmap anew, rebuild the backlog (assuming an agile development environment), and rock on.
Roadmapping Tools
ProductPlan – Has ties in to JIRA, but the last time I used it in a work environment, it was overall somewhat clunky, with slow updates in the browser, and a tendency to jump to the top of the page after a Save, which got frustrating
More Resources
Product Roadmapping 101: Where do I start?
Tips for Transforming Into An Agile Product Manager
Best Practices and Expert Tips for Creating Product Roadmaps
Technically Writing 