#220 – Product Roadmap

The Product Roadmap has nothing to do with commitments. Rather, it’s your strategic plan, as a Product Owner, for how to solve market problems through your product in order to make money for your for-profit company, or to serve the community in your non-profit organization. The roadmap is not an objective or a promise, so it’s not your goal to deliver everything on it for a specific date, month or quarter–instead, it’s your current best guess on how to maximize the value-add of your product.

A reason for sharing your roadmap with your stakeholders is to align them on your plan as it currently looks. This transparency into your expectations on the potential direction of the product will help your stakeholders see and buy into the big picture of your product. Communicating the roadmap frequently to your stakeholders will, over time and combined with a track-record of deliveries with a high adoption rate, build trust with the stakeholders as well as increase your credibility as a Product Owner.