Holistic view of all products being work on
I've been tasked with creating a strategic product development roadmap for all of the products our Scrum teams are working on in 2021. I believe my leadership team is wanting to look at the "big picture" to make sure they have the right teams focused on the right things. They do not want to look at 7-10 different roadmaps. Has anyone ever had to do this? I can conceptually picture it but putting pen to paper is proving to be challenging. I'm struggling with how to represent that. Surely other companies do what I will call mid to long term planning (9-12 months out) and strategically think through everything being worked.
They do not want to look at 7-10 different roadmaps
Assuming there are 7-10 different products, shouldn't there be 7-10 Product Owners who manage product strategy?
Yes, there are many product owners but our executives want a "combined view" of everything. What they are asking may be totally unrealistic but I thought I'd ask if any was ever asked to do that. We are a small company and I believe they are wanting to set some things aside to focus on other strategic goals for the upcoming year(s). In order to do that, they wanted to see what everyone is working on now. Not all execs attend all Sprint Reviews and participate in Release Planning so while they think they know what's going on with all teams, the reality is they don't. :-)
Is there a common theme between the products? If I had three different products which were used by the Client Success organization, I could combine the common themes, goals and create a broad vision and combined product roadmap to deliver quality to the Client Success organization. Your leadership team wants to know what they're burning cash on and then will likely ask FinOps to pull numbers to see if there is an ROI.
Another way to look at it is like a cafe owner. Cold, blended coffee drinks are a different product than a hot, cappuccino. But they're both beverages and there could be a common product roadmap for them (maybe with different swimlanes for each product). As an owner you want to know if your beverages (all) delight the customers and are profitable.
Thanks Mark. Some of them do have a common theme but not all. I’ve thought of using swim lanes so I am going to explore this option more. Appreciate your thoughts!