Product Development
Product Roadmap
Plan themes and features by quarter on one page you can share with stakeholders.
- Time: 60 to 90 min
- With: Product manager with leadership input
- You get: A theme-based roadmap for the next four quarters
How to use this worksheet
- Define three to five strategic themes. Themes explain why you are building things.
- Rename the columns to your planning periods. Keep the near term (next quarter) specific and the far term vague.
- Add features and initiatives as one line each. Start a line with "- ". Move work between quarters as you learn.
- Print or share the roadmap and review it every quarter.
Roadmap
Rows are themes, columns are periods. One initiative per line.
Prompts
Ask yourself
- Which theme gets the most investment, and is that on purpose?
- What is deliberately not on the roadmap?
Initiatives per period
Before you finish
- Each theme can be explained in one sentence.
- The near term is specific, the far term is not.
- Stakeholders understand this is a plan that will change.
About theme-based roadmaps
Theme-based roadmaps, popular with product managers, avoid promising features and dates. They communicate direction: the problems you will work on and in roughly what order.
Share the roadmap as a statement of intent, not a commitment. The further out, the less detailed it should be.
Recommended reading
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- Product Roadmaps RelaunchedC. Todd Lombardo et al.
How to build outcome-based roadmaps that communicate direction without overpromising dates.
- InspiredMarty Cagan
How great product teams decide what to build and sequence it.