Is Your Current Roadmap Process Healthy?
TransformationWhen I announced the launch of One Week Product Roadmap, my course that teaches product managers how to create an actionable strategic roadmap, 99% of folks who joined the interest list told me they did so because there was something about their current roadmap process that frustrated them. Some felt bogged down in a futile attempt to predict the unpredictable. Some felt they're simply moving from sprint to sprint, release to release, customer demand to customer demand with no real sense of direction. Others were searching for a way to demonstrate the value of what they were doing. Some were just looking for a better way. Most were just desperately trying to make sense of the chaos - to find some way to lead their teams forward in the darkness. All of them, complained about stakeholders.
Most heartbreaking of all, the experience had some questioning their own self-worth. Maybe this is you? TransformationBefore any transformation, we need to assess where we are and where we need to go. That will illuminate gaps and opportunities from where we can chart a path forward. It's the same with roadmap transformation: you need to assess your current process (assuming there even is one). From there, you can choose an approach. So, this week, I want to share a tool I've used in many of my gigs to assess the health of my product roadmap process. It's called a Roadmap Health Assessment Checklist. It's a simple tool that asks you to answer 14 questions. The total point value of all your answers will give you a sense of the quality of your current roadmap process and areas of potential improvement. Answer each question with a score on a scale of 0-2 (0 bad, 2 good). Then subtract the red scores from the green scores.
Yes, this is a subjective assessment. Do it with other team members to get a more diverse perspective. The purpose isn't to have a scientific audit. The intent is to have a helpful pulse check on where you - and perhaps the team - feel things are and where opportunities may lie. Roadmap RebootOnce you have your assessment, here's what you do:
Incremental improvements are generally a better approach vs. wholesale changes. It may be tempting to change everything all at once. But that can often cause more damage, especially if you've got something that's basically functional. So, first assess whether a full reset is truly required or if there's a base from which improvements can be made. You'll make quicker progress by prioritizing the most impactful areas and taking them on one at a time. Time for a reset. You necessarily have to start at the beginning with the fundamentals and work your way up from there. Even here, though, tread lightly on wholesale change. It can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned product folks. And it can take months to arrive at a process everyone is happy with. And in the meantime you still need to get product to customers and deliver business results. A 50,000-person Fortune 100 company I worked at decided to do this mid-stream. It was like trying to turn an oil tanker around in a small port.
Think about limiting the scope of the reboot so you can deliver tangible changes in shorter timespans.
Pro tips:
How good is your roadmap process?A roadmap health check was the first thing I did at the startup in my story. I shared the results with the CEO and other founders, and then got to work creating a roadmap that could get the organization aligned in 7 days. (Spoiler: I pulled it off!) It has worked so well for me in job after job that I decided to include it as one of the first exercises in my One Week Product Roadmap course. Give it a try and see where your roadmap process is today. Try the Roadmap Health Assessment Checklist for yourself. I hope it helps you and your teams like it helped me and mine.
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