The product roadmap: what to pay attention to when developing it
Global digitalization is making the market more and more customer-centric, customer needs, and customer challenges. To this end, small and large companies are organizing their processes around customer expectations, customer attraction, and retention. In this case, a product roadmap is a useful tool, it gives the opportunity to plan the release of new products and services that will be relevant to customers.
Different approaches are used to work with product roadmaps, including:
1. Agile. This methodology involves an agile approach to organizing and creating projects and products.
2. HCD – design, which is focused on the consumer, not on machines and promotion.
3. Design + Sell implies the use of interactive models in design. This creates a product that helps the consumer find the perfect solution to close their needs.
4. Milestone-Driven Innovation. It represents a hybrid mechanism for managing software to improve the planning and execution of tasks.
When developing a roadmap, specialists focus on a number of important points, one of which is Desirability. In simple words, the product should be focused on the consumer, to please him, to solve an important task for the client. In addition, the product should be viable and meet the needs of the business, meet its goals.
Separate attention during the development of the roadmap is given to technology. Here experts must clearly understand what tools will be used to create the product. The time to complete the task, the availability of the necessary technology and the company’s operational capabilities are also taken into account.
By answering the above questions, the business can correctly prioritize its further development and draw up a multi-year roadmap in as much detail as possible. It is a visual demonstration of what the product and its focus will look like over a certain period of time. The map includes a record of all the business opportunities that will help increase the value of the company and its products in the eyes of consumers.
The roadmap reflects the classification and sequence of actions in the process of creating goods and services. It is developed in close collaboration with the strategy so that each step is tailored to the market, its changes and customer needs.
The first thing to start with when developing a roadmap is to determine the time period for which it is intended. A stretch of more than 2 years is optimal.
The second step is to find an idea, for which it is better to organize a brainstorming session. And the most varied options should be voiced, without criticism and condemnation. On the basis of the collected data, you can move on to the concretization of ideas. After combining the proposals into a single scheme, begin work on the structure of the roadmap.
