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Using Product Roadmaps Effectively

A Scrum Team can use a product roadmap to communicate, discuss and also improve the plan for working toward their product vision. To use it effectively, the Scrum Team uses the roadmap to convey how the team intends to pursue their longer term goals. To do this, the Scrum Team must:

  • Update and improve it periodically. This can happen while refining the Product Backlog and also during Sprint Reviews to discuss near future prospects
  • Keep it high-level and lightweight. This helps the team make changes regularly and easily and allows the team to discuss upcoming opportunities internally as well as with stakeholders. These interactions, when properly facilitated, help create alignment
  • Focus on goals, not details. This approach allows you more flexibility when adjusting the roadmap, and also more creativity when discussing potential experiments

To create a roadmap that is focused on goals, it should answer questions like the following:

  • What is the gap* between the outcomes that customers currently experience and the outcomes that they would like to experience? 
  • What are the next Product Goals that could help close those gaps and satisfy customer outcomes?
  • What experiments might help validate our assumptions?

Be sure to communicate hypotheses and experiments the team is considering to validate assumptions on the roadmap. By visualizing them on the product roadmap, you are raising transparency about your intentions for the product.

*In Evidence-Based Management, this is the concept of Unrealized Value, which is the “satisfaction” gap between the outcomes that customers currently experience and the outcomes that they would like to experience.

 


Resources:

Learning Series
The Product Vision describes the purpose of a Product. A good Product Vision expresses the value the Product should deliver and to whom that value is delivered.

 

Blog Post
As a Product Owner, you are responsible for Product Backlog management, stakeholder management and forecasting. Therefore, you will probably use a variety of tools and techniques to track progress, manage expectations and keep people informed. One of the tools that may come in handy for you is a pro...
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Blog Post
Product roadmaps provide a way to understand where a product is headed, but the information provided on most of them doesn’t help to clear the clouds of confusion about whether the product is heading in the right direction
4.8 from 11 ratings

 

Blog Post
One of the elements of the Product Wall is the Roadmap. Often misused to create a yearly plan to stick to, Roadmaps are pretty different. Let's dive in!
4.8 from 10 ratings

 

Guide
Evidence-Based Management is a framework organizations can use to help measure, manage, and increase the value they derive from their product delivery. EBM focuses on improving outcomes, reducing risks, and optimizing investments.
4.5 from 95 ratings

 

 


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Included In

Learning Series
A product roadmap is a visual aid technique that a Scrum Team can use to share and discuss what is upcoming for the product at a high-level.