Rethinking Product Roadmaps - From Timeline to Outcome

May 2017 is witnessing a significant shift in how product teams approach roadmapping. The traditional timeline-driven roadmap—with features plotted against quarters—is increasingly being recognized as incompatible with agile development practices and the unpredictable nature of product innovation.

The Problem with Traditional Roadmaps

Traditional product roadmaps have several fundamental flaws that limit their effectiveness:

1. False Precision: They imply a level of certainty about the future that rarely exists in reality
2. Feature Focus: They emphasize outputs (features) rather than outcomes (customer and business value)
3. Inflexibility: They create resistance to change when new information emerges
4. Stakeholder Misalignment: They often represent compromises between stakeholder demands rather than coherent strategies

These limitations have led forward-thinking product teams to reimagine the roadmap concept entirely.

Emerging Approaches to Product Roadmapping

Several alternative roadmapping approaches are gaining traction in 2017:

1. The Now-Next-Later Roadmap

Pioneered by companies like Intercom, this approach divides initiatives into three time horizons without specific dates:

• Now: What the team is currently working on
• Next: The highest priority items to be worked on after current work is complete
• Later: Important initiatives that are not yet prioritized for immediate work

This approach provides directional information without false precision, allowing teams to adapt as they learn.

2. Outcome-Driven Roadmaps

Rather than focusing on features, outcome-driven roadmaps organize work around desired business and customer outcomes:

• Problem to Solve: The customer need or business challenge being addressed
• Success Metrics: How success will be measured
• Potential Solutions: Options for addressing the problem, to be validated through experimentation

This approach keeps teams focused on delivering value rather than completing feature checklists.

3. Theme-Based Roadmaps

Organizing roadmaps around strategic themes rather than specific features:

• Customer Acquisition: Initiatives focused on attracting new customers
• User Engagement: Work aimed at increasing engagement with existing users
• Monetization: Features and improvements designed to drive revenue
• Platform Health: Technical investments to improve reliability, performance, and scalability

Themes provide strategic context while allowing flexibility in how they're implemented.

Communicating Roadmaps to Different Audiences

A key insight from leading product teams is that different stakeholders need different views of the roadmap:

1. Executive Leadership: Strategic themes aligned with business objectives and high-level metrics
2. Sales and Marketing: Upcoming capabilities that can be communicated to customers and prospects
3. Development Teams: Near-term priorities with clear success criteria
4. Customers: General direction without specific commitments that could create disappointment

The most effective product leaders create multiple views of their roadmap tailored to each audience rather than trying to serve all purposes with a single artifact.

Tools and Techniques for Modern Roadmapping

The tooling landscape is evolving to support these new approaches:

• Productboard and Aha!: Providing flexible roadmapping capabilities that can adapt to different methodologies
• Trello and Airtable: Offering customizable views that can be tailored to different audiences
• Notion and Confluence: Enabling rich context and narrative around roadmap items

Many teams are also using simple visualization techniques like opportunity solution trees to connect strategic objectives to potential solutions.

Balancing Flexibility with Commitment

While the trend is toward more flexible roadmaps, product teams still need to provide enough certainty for business planning. Successful approaches balance flexibility with commitment through:

1. Commitment Levels: Explicitly indicating confidence levels for different roadmap items
2. Rolling Planning: Maintaining higher certainty for near-term items while keeping longer-term plans flexible
3. Regular Updates: Reviewing and adjusting roadmaps on a consistent cadence as new information emerges

Challenges in Transitioning to New Roadmapping Approaches

Organizations face several challenges when moving away from traditional roadmaps:

• Stakeholder Expectations: Executives and sales teams often want date-based commitments
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Coordinating with marketing, sales, and other functions that need advance notice
• Progress Tracking: Measuring and communicating progress when work isn't tied to specific timelines

Looking Ahead: The Future of Product Roadmapping

As we progress through 2017, several trends are emerging that will shape the evolution of roadmapping practices:

1. Continuous Delivery Integration: Roadmaps that reflect the reality of continuous deployment rather than major releases
2. Customer Feedback Loops: Tighter integration between customer feedback systems and roadmap prioritization
3. Data-Driven Prioritization: More sophisticated frameworks for evaluating and prioritizing opportunities

Conclusion: The Roadmap as a Strategic Communication Tool

The most effective product roadmaps in 2017 are evolving from project plans to strategic communication tools that:

• Align teams around common objectives
• Communicate direction without over-committing
• Maintain flexibility to adapt to new information
• Focus on outcomes rather than outputs

By rethinking the fundamental purpose and structure of roadmaps, product teams can create planning tools that better reflect the uncertain nature of product development while still providing the guidance needed for effective execution.

As agile practices continue to mature, we can expect further evolution in how teams plan and communicate their product direction, with an increasing emphasis on adaptability, customer value, and measurable outcomes.

This article was written by Nguyen Tuan Si, a product management specialist with experience implementing various roadmapping approaches across different organization types and sizes.