This document provides an overview of product roadmapping. It discusses two approaches to roadmapping - bottom-up and top-down. It also covers prioritization techniques, focusing on prioritizing features and epics based on attributes like stakeholder alignment, strategic alignment, and profit potential. The document recommends getting organizational buy-in through stakeholder engagement and "shuttle diplomacy" between teams.

1. Product
Roadmapping 101
Annu Augustine
@annua
March 2014, Sugsa

2. Agenda
• Vision, strategy, roadmaps
• Two approaches to roadmapping
• Prioritization – Prioritising for profit
• Organizational buy in – Shuttle diplomacy

3. Vision
“Our vision is to be earth’s
most customer centric
company; to build a place
where people can come to
find and discover anything
they might want to buy
online.”
“We believe that we are on
the face of the earth to make
great products and that’s not
changing. We are constantly
focusing on innovating. We
believe in the simple not the
complex.”
“Never enter a 16-digit number
again.”

4. Strategy

5. Vision
Strategy
Product
Roadmap
Lean Startup, Eric
Ries

6. Strategy in the agile world
Alice came to a fork in the road.
‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
‘Where do you want to go?’ responded the
Cheshire Cat.
‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered.
‘Then,’ said the Cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.’
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

7. “A roadmap is a planned
future”

8. A roadmap is not….
100% guaranteed
“These plans are our best estimate at this point in time for what we
should be able to do, given our resources and our understanding of
the technology landscape in which we operate. Any dates given are
estimates.
We strongly advise our customers not to make firm plans based on
what they see here: in an industry such as ours, things can change
very quickly and we have to react just as rapidly to new
opportunities that may present themselves.”
Disclaimer

9. Roadmap, Release
Timeframe Granularity Certainty Driven by
Release Near term
(months)
Features or
stories
High Short term
objectives, aligned
with a longer term
plan.
Roadmap Medium term
(many release
cycles)
Themes or epics
with some
feature/story
details
Moderate Company and
product strategy,
competitive
pressures and
market trends.
By Saeed Khan

10. “Roadmappingis a techniquefor strategic
planning;the roadmap is a key artifact
showingcurrentplans.”
StevenJohnson

11. How do you develop and
maintain a product roadmap?

12. Bottom-up approach
• Look for common themes
• Group similar capabilities
• Get rough sizes
• Plot on timeline
Product Backlog

13. Identifying Market NeedsIdentifying Market Needs
Competitor
Analysis
Market
Research
Trends
Elaboration
Market NeedsFeedback
Feeds CreatesProvides
Customer
Product
Manager

14. Top down approach
• Look at big ideas
• Get rough sizes
• Spread them across time

15. Sample roadmaps

16. Prioritization

17. Objective prioritization
This is not:
• Sales requests
• CEO’s opinion
• Popularity

18. Prioritise for scale
Learn from
Goldilocks….

19. Technique - Prioritizing for
profit
(LukeHohmann)

20. Prioritizing means ordering
Epic 1 Epic 2 Epic 3
Epic 1
Epic 2
Epic 3
Epic 2
Epic 1
Epic 3
Epic 3
Epic 2
Epic 1

21. To order you need attributes
Epic 1
Epic 2
Epic 3
Attribute 1 Attribute 2
Step 1 - Identify prioritization attributes.

22. To sort you need values
Value Value
Value Value
Epic 1
Epic 2
Attribute 1 Attribute 2
Step 2 – Assign values to the attributes.

23. Internal Stakeholders
Yes No
No Yes
It helps to group attributes
Epic 1
Epic 2
Sales Support

24. Internal Stakeholders
Weight 20 10
Yes No
No Yes
Not everyone is equal
Epic 1
Epic 2
Sales Support
Sales has twice
the influence
Step 3 – Weight the attributes

25. Attribute selection
• Valid across a few releases
• Value can be established in a timely and cost-effective
manner
• Support the politics of effective product management
• Align the roadmap to company and product goals

26. Recap of steps
• Step 1 - Identify prioritization attributes
• Step 2 – Assign values to the attributes
• Step 3 – Assign weight to the attributes
• Step 4 – Calculate the weighted sum across the attributes

27. Three core attributes
Stakeholder
Alignment
Strategic Alignment Driving Profit
Who?
Shows how you
are meeting
market needs
Why?
Shows how you align
with the big picture
Money
Shows how you
are going to make
money.

28. Stakeholders
External Customers
Partners
Channel
Internal Sales & Marketing
Professional Service
Customer Care
The System

29. Strategic alignment
• Understand your company strategy
• Work with executive team to understand weighting
• Demonstrate alignment with roadmap

30. Strategic alignment
Weight 20 15 5
1 1
1 1
Epic 1
Epic 2
Emerging
Markets
Reduce
operational
costs
Mobile
Confirm these
weightings
with
executives

31. Driving profit
• Understand what are the primary drivers of profit
• Show how you will be driving profit in your roadmap

32. Driving profit example
Weight 35 15 10
1 1
1
1 1 1
Epic 1
Epic 2
More paid
enterprise
components
More paid
consumer
components
More free
components
Epic 3

33. Roadmap prioritized for profit
Stakeholder
Alignment
Strategic Alignment Driving Profit
At least one item
for every
stakeholder.
At least one item
that aligns to
strategy.
At least one item
that drives profit.

34. How do you get organizational
buy-in?

35. Stakeholders
You
PartnersCustomers
Sales
Support
Other PMs
Tech lead
Architects
LegalMarketing
Analysts
CEO

36. Show them your process.

37. Shuttle Diplomacy
shuttle diplomacy
“..serving as an intermediary
between (or among) principals in
a dispute, without direct
principal-to-principal contact”
Wikipedia

38. “Think in leaps, but iterate in steps”

39. Learn more
• Prioritization 301 – Bruce McCarthy
• Prioritization for profit – Luke Hohmann
• Product prioritization - Martin Eriksson
• Releases, Roadmaps and Visions - Saeed Khan
• Roadmaps and roadmapping – Steve Johnson