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Ask HN: How to properly manage a product roadmap?

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Re: Ask HN: How to properly manage a product roadmap?

#11

Post by fraserharris »

Two approaches that can fix the root cause of mis-alignment between sales & product:

1) Teach your sales team how to pitch your product roadmap, so that customers are buying into the bigger vision. When customers are bought in, they will accept that they don't get their small feature because they will gain something larger faster. Sales LOVES when this is successful because then their deal can close faster.

2) Challenge the sales team to find at least 2 other customers that need the same feature before you agree to re-prioritize your product roadmap. This creates alignment between them & your need to prioritize the most impactful features.

Re: Ask HN: How to properly manage a product roadmap?

#13

Post by aprdm »

I would actually recommend reading Steve Jobs biography. I know it seems weird but the guy launched products that changed the world. I think seeing how his brain worked with products could help a lot.

I believe a big problem for getting a good product roadmap is very fundamental... we don't truly believe on the products we are working on or in the company we are working for. Is just a bunch of people with no real vision trying to influence one another over ego.

And then you have Sales of course who can actually talk smooth and influence better those who aren't sure about why they do what they do...

fraserharris (1) is about bigger vision. That's what I think makes a good product road map. A vision, extreme focus and caring about it.

Re: Ask HN: How to properly manage a product roadmap?

#14

Post by gregdoesit »

Priority changes, expanding scope and switching work from one project to the other all have a cost. Too much of this and you don’t get anything done: you’re just treading water. It doesn’t matter if you or customers drive your roadmap and it’s changes (though you would want to have a prioritisation framework to decide based on what business metrics you prioritise projects).

The first thing you should do is create stability within an ever changing business environment and also capture the cost of the priority churn. So create a roadmap, and have a process to capture priority changes, and how much WIP work is wasted (=not shipped, as it’s deprioritized) as a result.

There’s a bunch of tools and methodologies you can use for this. Sprints, scrum, OKRs etc.

As an engineering manager in a similarly fast-moving environment, the two main rules I follow are: 1. We don’t do any work that does not have impact defined: what happens or what we expect to happen when this project is shipped. This is usually in some numeric value. And we always work on the best impact/effort project next. 2. The team _always_ finishes what we start and we do small enough work items/milestones that enable us to iterate quickly.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: How to properly manage a product roadmap?

#15

Post by jariel »

aprdm wrote: post #13

I would actually recommend reading Steve Jobs biography. I know it seems weird but the guy launched products that changed the world. I think seeing how his brain worked with products could help a lot. I believe a big problem for getting a good product roadmap is very fundamental... we don't truly believe on the products we are working on or in the company we are working for. Is just a bunch of people with no real vis…

The sales team is more important than 'vision' 9 times out of 10.

In consumer, where the customer may not really know what they want, and can be convinced, it's more about vision and how that aligns with smart marketing.

With B2B the sales teams are it. Customers may also not know exactly what they want, but some discussion there will suss it out.

Note Apple was always pretty terrible in B2B, you wonder why?

Re: Ask HN: How to properly manage a product roadmap?

#16

Post by aprdm »

jariel wrote: post #15
aprdm wrote: post #13

I would actually recommend reading Steve Jobs biography. I know it seems weird but the guy launched products that changed the world. I think seeing how his brain worked with products could help a lot. I believe a big problem for getting a good product roadmap is very fundamental... we don't truly believe on the products we are working on or in the company we are working for. Is just a bunch of people with no real vis…

The sales team is more important than 'vision' 9 times out of 10. In consumer, where the customer may not really know what they want, and can be convinced, it's more about vision and how that aligns with smart marketing. With B2B the sales teams are it. Customers may also not know exactly what they want, but some discussion there will suss it out. Note Apple was always pretty terrible in B2B, you wonder why?

I think with no vision is really hard to build a good product and without a good product what exactly are you selling?

I think sales is super important yes but it sort of works after having a product.

It is just as important for a company since no sales == no money coming in.

I guess in the context of this topic I believe that to manage a product roadmap effectively having a strong vision for the product is fundamental.

Re: Ask HN: How to properly manage a product roadmap?

#17

Post by tonyedgecombe »

jariel wrote: post #15
aprdm wrote: post #13

I would actually recommend reading Steve Jobs biography. I know it seems weird but the guy launched products that changed the world. I think seeing how his brain worked with products could help a lot. I believe a big problem for getting a good product roadmap is very fundamental... we don't truly believe on the products we are working on or in the company we are working for. Is just a bunch of people with no real vis…

The sales team is more important than 'vision' 9 times out of 10. In consumer, where the customer may not really know what they want, and can be convinced, it's more about vision and how that aligns with smart marketing. With B2B the sales teams are it. Customers may also not know exactly what they want, but some discussion there will suss it out. Note Apple was always pretty terrible in B2B, you wonder why?

Apple was always pretty terrible in B2B, you wonder why?

I always thought that was a strength, they focussed on areas that companies like Microsoft were completely oblivious to.

Re: Ask HN: How to properly manage a product roadmap?

#19

Post by youeseh »

You have people constantly changing their minds.

Before you can make a roadmap, you need a sense of direction.

Maybe you need to zoom out a bit. What do you offer? To whom? Why? Why them? What do you not offer? Why not?

Can you get those answers without asking your engineers to constantly build shit that they'll need to throw away?

Can you collect information cheaply? Can you ask your bizdev people to get answers to questions that will help you? What is the cheapest way to learn?

The more you build, the more you'll have to support.

Re: Ask HN: How to properly manage a product roadmap?

#20

Post by meerita »

It is impossible. It depends the scope of the project and the company mentality. In my 12 years as PM, I understood that no roadmap is useful unless it is a short-term roadmap with achievable objectives. It is much easier to plan and scope.

I really don't appreciate when other PMs come to me with a 1 year roadmap. Who knows how many thing we will not do, or change or pivot based always on the data we're getting? That's why I preffer better planned things (docs, teamwork) than a document with a nice unrealistic roadmap.

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