Product Management Roadmap Principles and (free) Template
Creating and maintaining a product roadmap is probably one of the most widely accepted product management responsibilities.
There are a number of product management tools for roadmapping on the market today ranging from Aha! Product Management (collaborative and visual) to Microsoft Project (the adult version of Chutes and Ladders from 1943).
It’s easy to get caught up in wiz-bang solutions that practically promise to organize your work for you in a collaborative and visual way that Edward Tufte himself would envy.
The point is that there are just a few key principles that, when followed, effectively communicate the current state and next steps of a product. A product management roadmap <b> defines the product’s present and future direction.
Product Management Roadmap Principles
· Accessible. Few team members (especially executives) will make the effort to login to a system or site to view a product roadmap. If it’s not right under their nose, team members won’t use it. See that the product management roadmap is distributed via email.
· Informative. The information on the report need only explain the current status and next steps. If there’s any information on the report that doesn’t achieve either of those two purposes, remove it.
· Usable. The product roadmap should be in a format that doesn’t consume your time and energy to update. If the tool isn’t relatively easy to use the first time you try, move on.
· Visual. The format of the report should be simple and clean. If status is not easily recognizable through standardized shapes and colors, readers won’t be able to quickly understand the product’s future. Follow Robin William’s Non-designer’s type book.
Download Free Product Management Roadmap Template (.xls)
Please add this FREE product roadmap to your collection of product management tools. This template has been used by several senior technical product managers over the years and continues to be particularly useful.
Attributions:
Contributors: Michael Colemere and Candianne Haacke
Image: Ben Husmann
SEO: Scott Eggenberger
