Product Roadmapping 101Annu Augustine@annuaMarch 2014, Sugsa

Agenda• Vision, strategy, roadmaps• Two approaches to roadmapping• Prioritization – Prioritising for profit• Organizational buy in – Shuttle diplomacy

Vision

“Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing. We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the complex.”

“Never enter a 16-digit number again.”

Strategy

Vision

Strategy

ProductRoadmap

Lean Startup, Eric Ries

Strategy in the agile world

Alice came to a fork in the road. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ responded the Cheshire Cat. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the Cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.’ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“A roadmap is a planned future”

A roadmap is not….100% guaranteed

“These plans are our best estimate at this point in time for what we should be able to do, given our resources and our understanding of the technology landscape in which we operate. Any dates given are estimates.

We strongly advise our customers not to make firm plans based on what they see here: in an industry such as ours, things can change very quickly and we have to react just as rapidly to new opportunities that may present themselves.”

Disclaimer

Roadmap, ReleaseTimeframe Granularity Certainty Driven by

Release Near term (months)

Features or stories

High Short term objectives, aligned with a longer term plan.

Roadmap Medium term(many release cycles)

Themes or epics with some feature/story details

Moderate Company and product strategy, competitive pressures and market trends.

By Saeed Khan

“Roadmapping is a technique for strategic planning; the roadmap is a key artifact

showing current plans.”Steven Johnson

How do you develop and maintain a product roadmap?

Bottom-up approach• Look for common themes• Group similar capabilities• Get rough sizes• Plot on timeline

Product Backlog

Identifying Market NeedsIdentifying Market Needs

Competitor Analysis

Market Research

Trends

Elaboration

Market NeedsFeedback

Feeds CreatesProvides

Customer

Product Manager

Top down approach• Look at big ideas• Get rough sizes• Spread them across time

Sample roadmaps

Prioritization

Objective prioritization

This is not:• Sales requests• CEO’s opinion• Popularity

Prioritise for scale

Learn from Goldilocks….

Technique - Prioritizing for profit

(Luke Hohmann)

Prioritizing means ordering

Epic 1 Epic 2 Epic 3

Epic 1

Epic 2

Epic 3

Epic 2

Epic 1

Epic 3

Epic 3

Epic 2

Epic 1

To order you need attributes

Epic 1

Epic 2

Epic 3

Attribute 1 Attribute 2

Step 1 - Identify prioritization attributes.

To sort you need values

Value Value

Value Value

Epic 1

Epic 2

Attribute 1 Attribute 2

Step 2 – Assign values to the attributes.

Internal Stakeholders

Yes No

No Yes

It helps to group attributes

Epic 1

Epic 2

Sales Support

Internal Stakeholders

Weight 20 10

Yes No

No Yes

Not everyone is equal

Epic 1

Epic 2

Sales SupportSales has twice the influence

Step 3 – Weight the attributes

Attribute selection

• Valid across a few releases• Value can be established in a timely and cost-effective

manner• Support the politics of effective product management• Align the roadmap to company and product goals

Recap of steps• Step 1 - Identify prioritization attributes• Step 2 – Assign values to the attributes• Step 3 – Assign weight to the attributes• Step 4 – Calculate the weighted sum across the attributes

Three core attributes

Stakeholder Alignment Strategic Alignment Driving Profit

Who?Shows how you are meeting market needs

Why?Shows how you align with the big picture

MoneyShows how you are going to make money.

StakeholdersExternal Customers

PartnersChannel

Internal Sales & Marketing Professional Service Customer CareThe System

Strategic alignment• Understand your company strategy• Work with executive team to understand weighting• Demonstrate alignment with roadmap

Strategic alignment

Weight 20 15 5

1 1

1 1

Epic 1

Epic 2

Emerging Markets

Reduce operational

costsMobile

Confirm these weightings with executives

Driving profit• Understand what are the primary drivers of profit• Show how you will be driving profit in your roadmap

Driving profit example

Weight 35 15 10

1 1

1

1 1 1

Epic 1

Epic 2

More paid enterprise

components

More paid consumer

components

More free components

Epic 3

Roadmap prioritized for profit

Stakeholder Alignment Strategic Alignment Driving Profit

At least one item for every stakeholder.

At least one item that aligns to strategy.

At least one item that drives profit.

How do you get organizational buy-in?

Stakeholders

You

PartnersCustomers

Sales

Support

Other PMs

Tech lead

Architects

LegalMarketing

Analysts

CEO

Show them your process.

Shuttle Diplomacy

shuttle diplomacy “..serving as an intermediary

between (or among) principals in a dispute, without direct

principal-to-principal contact” Wikipedia

“Think in leaps, but iterate in steps”

Learn more• Prioritization 301 – Bruce McCarthy• Prioritization for profit – Luke Hohmann• Product prioritization - Martin Eriksson• Releases, Roadmaps and Visions - Saeed Khan• Roadmaps and roadmapping – Steve Johnson