Product roadmaps for existing products

Once you’ve launched your product to the market, it’s worth spending some time deciding what to do about your product roadmap. Think about what questions you want your product roadmap to answer, whether you should show it to your customers and whether you need a product roadmap at all.

How to build effective product roadmaps. Effective roadmaps help a cross-functional organization make deliberate choices about a product’s development. Whether you’re writing a roadmap or reading one, you have a stake in making sure the roadmap answers the questions on which you need stakeholders to provide consensus. Travis Donia describes some questions that good roadmaps answer.
(via O'Reilly)

Public vs. private: A million dollar roadmap question. In today’s dynamic software landscape, product managers face the crucial task of maintaining the product roadmap. As a part of that task, they must carefully consider how to communicate plans for their products. They can choose from two emerging paths: the public roadmap, where transparency and engagement take center stage, and the private roadmap, where confidentiality and agility reign supreme. Martin Michalik discusses the things to consider when deciding whether your roadmap will be public or private.
(via Martin Michalik)

Continues below...

Share your story
For over a year now, we have been sharing our own personal perspectives on all things product here in this newsletter. But we know there's wisdom in crowds, so we are trying something new. If you are a product leader, a product manager, a transformative digital executive, or simply anyone with a novel perspective on Product Management, we want to give you the opportunity to share your opinions with over 50,000 Product Collective newsletter subscribers. Fill out this brief form and you'll be in with a chance to publish your thoughts to the 1000s of product people who read this newsletter each week.

10 Examples of amazing public product roadmaps for SaaS companies. Public product roadmaps are essential if you want to be  transparent with your customers. You can share your plans for upcoming releases and engage in valuable conversations with your customers, increasing transparency and trust. Top companies such as Intel, Buffer, Microsoft, Front, etc., have made their roadmap public and have received much love from customers and peers for the decision. The folks at Rapidr gathered ten amazing public product roadmap examples to guide you in building your own public roadmap.
(via Rapidr)

Product roadmaps vs. product plans. Roadmaps are NOT Plans. They are an output of a Strategy process. It’s important to understand the distinction between Roadmaps and Plans, how you define them and how you use them to maximize company focus and drive outcomes. Saeed Khan suggests you should stop conflating the two. Roadmaps and especially roadmapping are powerful tools when wielded correctly and far too many companies unnecessarily struggle with alignment and focus by using these tools poorly.
(via Saeed Khan)

The benefits of product roadmaps are overrated. Here’s why. Many product people view the product roadmap as the overarching gospel of product development. Roadmaps guide your way and tell you when to zig and when to zag. They can also kill creativity, flexibility, and innovation. Dani Jones explores 7 reasons you should (possibly) ditch your product roadmap. The key is using roadmaps as a starting point, not an end goal.
(via tl;dv )