Are you a product manager who wants to launch a new product? Well, any business that wants to launch a new product must first develop a product roadmap.
A product roadmap acts as a guide that describes the timing and goals of the product launch to help teams better collaborate their efforts. Let's say that product management also has challenges, however, creating a roadmap of a product that truly works is not an easy task. It is possible to develop an effective product roadmap with the best practices and tools.
Hence you can make sure the upcoming project for your business is on track for success. We cover the various best practices and tools available when developing a product roadmap in this article.
Why is a Product Roadmap important?
The Product Manager explains that product roadmaps are dynamic guides that shouldn't ever be considered “final”. The more you and your agile team learn, the more adjustments the product roadmap will make for the product life cycle.
Further, the product roadmap gives your team guidance, makes sure the product priorities, and allows input and agreement so that all team members and stakeholders may get into the procedure. The product roadmap also examines every stage of the product to spot any issues and gaps.
5 Best Practices to create a Product Roadmap
We cover how to create a product roadmap in these five steps below:
1. Define your product vision
Product Plan reveals that product vision or product vision statement is your product's broad long-term mission.
Vision statements are visionary and clearly describe where the product hopes to go and what it wants to achieve in the long run.
A vision statement outlines the goal of the product and its value proposition, and it should be aligned with the company's overall strategy.
2. Customer-friendly
Customer-friendly is also a key factor in creating a successful product roadmap. Understanding customer needs and preferences can help teams to prioritise features and ensure that the product meets customer expectations.
A customer-oriented approach to product development is essential as it helps businesses to create products that meet the needs of their target audience.
Moreover, incorporating customers' feedback and suggestions is important to ensure that the product roadmap aligns with the customers' needs and preferences.
For example, you can conduct surveys to get customers’ feedback and suggestions.
4. Use data to make decisions
After we use a customer-oriented approach and get customers’ feedback and suggestions, then product decisions should be backed by data instead of intuition.
Scaling any volume of data, data administration, and providing real-time insights on data utilisation are important. Make sure your team accesses data and gets the information they need using a central system.
Further, you will need data visualisation tools such as Tableau or Looker to enable team members to draw insights from raw data. Qualitative and quantitative data can inform your team to make roadmap decisions.
5. Re-prioritise your backlog
Product Plan’s survey revealed that more than 70% of product managers re-prioritise their backlog at least once each month. More than 40% report doing so each week.
Don’t avoid your backlog. It should include features, user stories, repairs, and more projects that are important but not ready yet to be placed on the roadmap.
So, you and your product team cannot afford to neglect that backlog for a long time. Even if they may not be at the top of your priority list right now, backlog items soon will.
5 Tools to create a Product Roadmap
Here are some tools that help teams create and manage product roadmaps:
1. Trello
Trello is a popular project management tool that can also be used for creating a product roadmap. It provides a simple and intuitive interface for creating boards, cards, and lists.
Trello's integration with other tools such as Google Drive and Slack can also help teams to collaborate more effectively. For example, a team might create a board for their upcoming product launch, with cards representing each task needed to get the product ready for launch. Trello's intuitive interface and customizable features make it a great choice for teams new to product roadmap creation.
2. JiraJira
Jira is another popular project management tool that is widely used in software development teams. It is an agile project management tool that allows teams to track tasks and workflows using scrum or kanban methodologies.
Jira allows teams to create epics and user stories that represent different parts of the product roadmap. Jira's robust reporting features also make it easy for teams to track progress towards product goals and milestones.
3. Asana
Asana's interface is similar to Trello, with users creating cards for each task and moving them between different lists to track progress.
Further, Asana allows teams to create different projects or portfolios for different product goals or milestones. Asana's calendar view also makes it easy for teams to visualise their product roadmap over time.
Since it offers so much customisation within a template, Asana is unique. Users can introduce reference sections for help and add columns and sections based on the goals of the product or the release timing.
4. Monday.com
Monday.com is an award-winning solution for product management and collaboration. It has a visual road mapping tool. It provides an easy but efficient way for teams to track their product's development, plan out workflows, establish deadlines, and colour-code essential tasks.
Users can zoom in on key components of the roadmap with Monday.com's software, which makes it a wise choice. Further, users can view the project as a whole or the status of each job. There are some viewing options and a high-level dashboard for adding control.
5. ProductPlan
ProductPlan is a tool for creating, sharing, and referring to a large number of product roadmaps. It combines a specific road mapping and product management tool with a variety of other technologies that product teams can integrate for additional capabilities.
Additionally, real-time job modifications and critical decision-making are made possible by live roadmaps for managers and significant stakeholders.
The unique feature of ProductPlan is how quickly users can build a new roadmap. With a drag-and-drop building function, you can create a personalised roadmap in only a few clicks.
To Sum Up
Developing a product roadmap is crucial to keep the track of your product strategy. You can ensure that your team is collaborating effectively to create the most successful product by using better data practices and tools.
Last but not least, if your team knows the basics of how to create a product roadmap with its best practices and tools, now it’s your turn to create the best product roadmap.
We hope you found this article useful and that it has provided you with some insight into how to develop a product roadmap for your team.
