PoC - #6 - Product Roadmaps
Product Roadmaps - Clearing the air
Greetings,
Another week filled with insightful chats and some amazing conversations. Both at work and off work. These conversations fuel this newsletter.
This week I explore the misunderstood world of Product Roadmaps.
Product Roadmaps - Clearing the air
As a Product Manager, you are a part time non-fiction writer.
Except for one collateral. Roadmaps.
Roadmaps for most product managers are a works for fiction. It is document that aimed at producing a logical breakdown of an idea execution over time. The intentions are noble. But the underlying assumptions are not always obvious.
Look what shows up when you search for “product roadmaps” on google images.
Predominantly a bunch of gantt charts. I have nothing against Gantt charts. But as with any data visualisation, it needs to be used in the right context. An underlying assumption of a gantt chart is that each stream is independently achievable. Another is that we understand enough to accurately estimate how long it takes. That troubles me as Product Manager.
Product management works in the realm of bets and deals with unknowns. Project management works in the realm of scheduling and managing risks. So you cannot read a product roadmap like a project roadmap or vice-versa. A project roadmap is an execution schedule.
A product roadmap is a potential map of the area you might explore. It is mixture of rapid discovery and selective execution. It is hard to simplify this Product knowledge graph for external audiences outside the product team without creating knowledge gaps.
Representing a product roadmap in time chunks ( quarterly and annual plans ) needs to stop. A product roadmap is a learning tool not an execution tool. A product roadmap should be viewed as areas that the product teams would be looking to learn more.
What hurts this cause more is the popular set of roadmapping tools are linear. JIRA, Asana, Aha etc . However I think the time for a graph representation of a product roadmap is ripe. I am strong proponent of representing your product roadmap as a graph. Mention the nodes and branches you are focussing on for the next period. It explains the product management problem space a lot better.
I think the adoption of note taking tools like Roam Research and Obsidain will hasten this trend.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this . Reach out on Twitter or Linkedin
Regards,
Ram Rao
Quote of the week : James Clear
Most people think they lack motivation when they really lack clarity.