When planning out a software product roadmap it is essential to focus in on as wide range of product ideas as possible in the early stages before targeting markets and product lines. In this post I’ll show you a general process that can be used by product managers for defining their roadmaps.
The chief technical officer product manager usually has to pull together a product roadmap. This starts out by creating a full list or database of product ideas, feature requests, ideas from business development strategy plans, new technologies, etc. It is important to use a broad range of ideas to start out with to make sure you are targeting multiple different concepts.
Begin by organizing each of these ideas according to market. This allows you to define products for each subsequent market that could be produced. The product manager should then work with the marketing team to define the size of each of these markets, potential penetration rates and the level of competition. All this research intends for you to whittle down the amount of suitable markets.
You are now in a good situation for defining a first draft of your product roadmap. Start out by selecting the most desirable markets you identified and specifying short term goals for products in these markets. Longer-term opportunities and goals can also be defined bought will be prone to change. It is especially worthwhile defining any architectural decisions which could make initial product lines reusable for making product variations later down the road.
The product roadmap should then be reviewed internally by your peers and colleagues to see what feedback or changes are needed. All roadmaps will have to change over a period of time as you dynamically revisit ideas, new technologies arise and your business plans alter. This is the natural course of events and it is up to the product manager to make sure any changes to the roadmap are communicated effectively to all interested parties.
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