Developing a Product Road Map
Coming up with ideas is the easy part, figuring what/how/when to build is the challenge.
A product road-map is a great way to prioritize development efforts in the most efficient way possible. Being both a great tool for lining up projects for your PM (Project Manager), it will also force you to think about the inter-connectedness of your efforts and develop solid priorities.
According to the Technology Roadmap wiki page, there are 3 phases of the road mapping process.
- Preliminary Activity
- Development of the Road Map
- Follow Up Activity
Preliminary Activity
The first phase is to satisfy essential conditions, provide leadership/sponsorship and define the scope and boundaries of the technology road map. Clear communication and stake holder input at this point is vital to the success of any road map. By the end of this phase you should have a clear understanding of the boundaries, scope and time line of the road map.
Development of the Road Map
When beginning to build out your Product Road Map you’ll want to identify the product and critical components needed. Use the high-level business requirements to build out milestones that will support your objectives.
The meat of your road-map will be the technology development . It may help to break up the development into manageable components and/or groupings based on resources required. Document each of the components in such a way that spcifies the purpose and expected results.
Not represented in the graph below, is something that I myself would like to see included: marketing. It could be helpful to have marketing milestones overlayed on top, to give you an input to your strategic marketing plan.
purpose driven roadmap chart example
Follow Up Activity
This phase is the review and critique of your new bright and shiny road map. At this point you need to poke as many holes into your plan as you can, you want this thing bulletproof. Once you get sign off and buy in from your major stakeholders and team leaders, its time to send your road map over to your Project leaders and go!
Tags: planning, product road map, project management, technology
June 14th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
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