Roadmaps... dreaded roadmaps (Product Camp Vancouver 2015)
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At ProductCamp Vancouver 2015, Jan Carter and Michele Macready discussed the importance of redefining product roadmaps to focus on strategy, themes, and customer needs rather than just daily tasks. They emphasized stepping back from tools to prioritize long-term planning and collaboration among teams. The session encouraged attendees to think critically about how to elevate their roadmaps from tactical to strategic levels.
Roadmaps... dreaded roadmaps (Product Camp Vancouver 2015)
- 1. Roadmaps dreaded roadmaps ProductCamp Vancouver 2015 Jan Carter Senior Product Manager, Hootsuite @janccarter Michele Macready Founder and Principal, Illume Consulting @mmacready
- 2. The clients are demanding these features! When are they coming? - CRO We need a product roadmap...
- 3. Budgets need to be finalised. What are your cost & revenue projections? - CFO We need a product roadmap...
- 4. How many developers do we need, what will they be working on? - CTO We need a product roadmap...
- 5. Give me a couple of slides so I can update the investors about our plans - CEO We need a product roadmap...
- 6. Ill build the product roadmap!
- 7. Let me pick one of the many tools and build it...
- 8. We have a product roadmap!
- 9. We need to REDEFINE the product roadmap
- 10. Focus on the Why, Strategy, Themes, Who will Buy Not only the Daily (although that is also important) A first step: Take a step back from your day-to-day
- 11. Try this: Put your tool away for a few days Focus on Why/What, Strategy, Themes With whiteboard and post- its Get out of your tool and on a whiteboard http://www.mindtheproduct.com/2014/07/experiments-roadmapping-gov-uk/
- 12. S/T and L/T Themes Releases Features Priorities And only after: Get into the details of features
- 13. Break into teams for 20 min. Then, come back and share with group Q. What would you do on Monday to elevate the roadmap to the strategic from the tactical level? Lets break into teams
- 19. What did you learn? What will you do differently tomorrow? Wrap-up
Editor's Notes
- #2: Jan: Welcome to Roadmaps, Dreaded Roadmaps! Im Jan CarterHootsuite... Michele: And Im Michele Macready Illume Consulting... Youve probably all heard that Product Managers should be the CEOs of our products. Take a minute and Imagine a world where you are really the CEO of your product. What would that look like? CEOs set the vision, know the market, the product, and the customers inside out, and build alignment throughout the organization on this vision and strategy CEOs also do some planning, but not all day every day CEOs show this in clear high-level visuals that everyone can understand Today we will work together to help you develop a more strategic roadmap that moves you in this direction
- #3: Jan: Talked about vision, lets talk about where we are today.
- #6: Hint, hint, remember this as we talk about you becoming the CEO of your product...
- #8: First step: need a tool to put this into To let me document and share the roadmap Wow, there are a lot of tools! I will just use whatever one my company is using and start typing.
- #9: BUT... Everyone wants their client-impacting features prioritised first how can I prioritise when everyone is squabbling? Im being asked to commit to features 12 months from now I dont know whats going to derail this tomorrow, let alone that far out Were lean and agile we dont need no stinking roadmap, well just pivot No one believes the product roadmap anymore because we can never deliver to it And the roadmap is a TON of words and data, that does not succinctly reflect the Why, What, and Strategy OR if it does, it is buried so deep in the tool that I cant even find it!
- #10: Michele: We need to blow up the current roadmap process, up to a more strategic level If we act like the CEO, then It is up to us to figure out how Change the roadmap process if it is broken. Dont ask for permission, just DO it. Also remember, we are all AGILE now, so Experiment and Learn. Try it and if it works, continue, and if it doesnt, try something else!
- #11: We tend to be focused on the burning platforms: the daily stuff, sprints, iterations, releases BUT: CEO should focus on the Strategy, Portfolio, and Product level. Whoa, we feel good if we can raise it up to the Release level. Disconnect! Lets fix that.
- #12: A suggestion to experiment and learn: Give up the tool for a few days Raise it up to the Strategy and Themes level, Answer Why Build agreement with execs and internal teams Integrate your market and customer knowledge, and talk to customers to verify Lots of good examples online: this is from Gov.UK: they have great examples of how to do this
- #13: Jan: If we focus on the Strategy, Portfolio, and Product first Then of course we still need the details But they will by definition be in alignment now And it will be visual and easy for the Company CxOs to see and understand Map everything you do back to the Vision and Strategy And the org has agreed and you have buy-in
- #14: Focus on answering these two questions Examples for question 1: - Put on the wall - Meet with cust/CxOs, team - Spend less time in tool / on details - Spend time meeting with CxOs to understand co. Why / goals/ strategy, and how team and product contributes to this - Writing down what they already know on the wall - Getting to elevator pitch for all of this, including releases - Re-prioritize backlog against the strategy: top 2-3 items (drive revenue, reduce costs) - what will people buy? Examples for Question 2: - Yourself - Customers - CxOs - Teams - Vendors in similar space - Parallel industries, meet people in different industries and backgrounds
- #20: Popcorn-style: just yell out your ideas
- #21: Thank You!