Roadmaps That Inspire

Roadmaps That Inspire

Roadmapping 301

Bruce McCarthyFounder & Chief Product Person, Reqqs

www.reqqs.com

Bruce McCarthy

“Before you embark on a long trip — or a long development project — be clear on the goals with a rough idea of the logical steps.”

- Steve Johnson

A Roadmap Is a Path to Your Goals

“Is this more important than what’s already on the

roadmap?”

Roadmaps Inspire

Buy-in from execs

Confidence from salespeople

Loyalty from customers

Stick-to-itiveness & over-delivery from your team

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

7 Roadmap Pillars

1. Strategic Goals

2. Generate Ideas

3. Objective Prioritization

4. Shuttle Diplomacy

5. Benefit-oriented Themes

6. Appropriate Format & Cadence

7. Punctuated Equilibrium

Setting Goals

“A strategic goal is used to define the desired end-state of a war or campaign.”

- Wikipedia

Ask yourself:

“Why are we doing this

product in the first place?”

Set SMART Goals

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-bound

BAD

HTML5 Redesign

Social Integration

Customer Requests

Revenue

Scalability

Transformational Ideas

GOOD

Increase Adoption

Increase Referrals

Increase Renewals

Grow New Bus. This Year

Support Usage Projections

Test Future Revenue Opportunities

Setting Priorities

Why Is Prioritization Important?

Opportunity Cost

Why Is Prioritization Hard?

Product Management Journal, 2013

Collect Ideas

Brainstorm ways to meet your goals

Ask your customers about their problems

Services & Sales requests

GoalIncrease Adoption, defined as logging in 3+ times

IdeasUpdate look and feel

Shorten registration process

Decrease page load times

Support custom avatars

(Hypotheses)

Bad Ways to Rank Ideas

Your CEO’s gutNo longer in touch with customers

Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking

PopularityMost of your customers are small

Sales requests Change every week

Services requests Mostly incremental

Math makes (almost) everything better

Value / Effort = Priority

Effort

Value

High

High

Low

Low

Value / Effort = Priority

Value = Expected Contribution to Defined Goals

Value / Effort = Priority

Effort = Work the organization must do

to realize value

Contribution

Exact numbers

1-10

1-100

Fibonacci

1 to 5 stars

0,1,2

Estimating Effort

DO NOT ask Engineering for an estimate

Do it yourself

NOT person-months

NOT sprints

0-5 scale

Feature G1 G2 E P

A 1 1 2 1

B 1 0 2 0.5

C 2 -1 1 1

(Goal1+Goal2)/Effort = Priority

Driving Consensus

Shuttle Diplomacy

“ Serving as an intermediary among principals in a dispute, without direct principal-to-principal

contact.”From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eng

UX

Marketing

Services

Sales

HRFinance

BD

Customers

PartnersAnalysts

Your Boss

C-SuiteOther PMsTech

Lead

Architects

Legal

“I’ve got a draft set of priorities. Would you help me refine it?”

“I’ll present our priorities to the executive

team on Friday”

Collaboration

Themes

“A group of features tied together by a simple, clear

benefit, usually to the customer”

Bruce McCarthy

Example

PROBLEM: Users abandon their carts too often because checkout is too difficult

1. Consolidate steps

2. Save payment info

3. Pre-load pages

BENEFIT: “Faster Checkout” saves you time

Themes Are Vague

High-level, few words

Make the benefit obvious

Many details rolled up

Cut features & still declare victory!

Cutting a theme

needs an explanation

4 Roadmap Types

External

Cross-functional

Technical

Portfolio

H1‘14 H2’14 2015 2016

Benefit ALikely Feature 1Likely Feature 2Likely Feature 3

Benefit B Benefit DBenefit E, Phase II

Benefit CBenefit E, Phase I

Benefit F

Weaselly Safe Harbor Statement

Product X is focused on solving problem Y best for market Z

H1‘14 H2’14 2015 2016

Indestruct-ible hose

20’ lengthEasy connections

No-kink armor

Delicate Flower

Management

Putting Green

Evenness for Lawns

Infinite Extensibilit

y

Severe Weather Handling

Extended Reach

Permanent Installatio

ns

Weaselly Safe Harbor Statement

The Wombat Garden Hose is focused on perfecting the landscapes of affluent Americans

Quarter Quarter Half Year Full Year

Theme A Theme C Theme DTheme E, Phase II

Theme BTheme E, Phase I

Theme F

Weaselly Safe Harbor Statement

Traditional External Roadmap

Current Planned Considering

Theme A Theme C Theme D

Theme B Theme E

Weaselly Safe Harbor Statement

Lean External Roadmap

Q3’13 Q4’13 H1’14 H2’14

ThemesTheme

ATheme

CTheme

DTheme F

Likely Features

Feature 1Feature 2

Feature 3

Feature 1Feature 2

Feature 3

StageActive

Development

Prototype Testing

Discovery

Discovery

MetricsShip all

MVP features

10 schools6 renew4 say “must have”

10 schools 10 schools

Dependencies & Risks

Claire sick for 3 wks

UX resource from Project

Beetle

New PM hire

S&MImproved

competitive position

Annual industry event

New regulationsWeaselly Safe Harbor Statement

Product Wagyu is focused on achieving product/market fit and getting to growth in 2014

Q3’13 Q4’13 H1’14 H2’14

ProductThemes

Theme A

Theme C

Theme D

Theme F

Likely Features

Feature 1Feature 2

Feature 3

Feature 1Feature 2

Feature 3

Feature 1Feature 2

Feature 3

Feature 1Feature 2

Feature 3

StageActive

Development

Prototype Testing

Discovery

Discovery

Usage Projections

Internal only

< 20 accts< 100 users

< 100 accts< 1000 users

< 1000 accts< 10k users

Dependencies & Risks

Claire sick for 3 wks

UX resource from Project

Beetle

New PM hire

Technology & Infrastructur

e

New UI Framework

AWS Migration

Solr POCPrivate cloud

Weaselly Safe Harbor Statement

Technical Roadmap

Q3’13 Q4’13 H1’14 H2’14

Product YStage: DevelopmentGoal: Product/Launch Fit

MVP Soft Launch Learn

Product/Market

FitGrow

Product XStage: IntroductionGoal: Product/Market Fit

Product/Market

Fit

Scale On-Boarding Process

Enhance Product Value

Grow

Product ZStage: GrowthGoal: 50% Sales Growth

Channel Enableme

nt

Key Integration

s

Critical B&R

UX Standardizati

on

Weaselly Safe Harbor Statement

Internal Portfolio Roadmap

Punctuated Equilibrium

“A theory that evolution proceeds with long periods of

relative stability interspersed with

rapid change.”

Webster's College Dictionary

Adjust your roadmap every 1-2 cycles

Roadmap Change

People expect it

You probably didn’t ship everything you wanted to

The market situation has changed

You have more information

Execs have ADD

Discussion & Feedback

I Help Product People

Team coaching via UpUp Labs

Tools: Reqqs - the smart roadmap tool for product people

Blog: ProductPowers.com

Twitter: @d8a_driven

Email: bruce@reqqs.com

Want to chat? sohelpful.me/brucemccarthy