Product Development 2- Roadmap Template

It is important to understand that product roadmap in itself is not an imperative and it's structure and format completely depends on how easily it can be comprehended by the stakeholders. Different organizations have a variety of product development processes, marketing strategy, sales cycles, and decision making processes. Take for instance, a small team with an early stage product, a white board photo of a prioritized list of future initiatives might serve as an adequate product roadmap. While in a large organization with a mature product, slide decks with detailed product strategy and feature breakdowns of each project might be needed. Second, and this is extremely important, the format of the document is far less important than the support of key stakeholders. Even the most beautiful product roadmap is worthless if the stakeholders don't really align with it. The key to building this alignment is the process that it goes through. Not the final format or even the contents of the product roadmap. That said, here's a typical product roadmap format that works well in many organizations.

This roadmap uses a graphical layout that can be easily drawn on a slide using software like PowerPoint. The roadmap shows the future time periods along the x-axis at the top and the different products along the y-axis on the left.

And then plots the upcoming milestones for each product across the grid. The milestones are typically shown just as text boxes that are positioned at their release date. Or they could be long horizontal bars corresponding to the time period when the product development team will be working on them. 

Let's use an example of a software product development company. In this example, the x-axis shows the upcoming nine months, and the y-axis breaks the product into four categories corresponding to the four different stages of  product development. And there are several milestones on the grid. 

Here are some potential variations to this basic format. Depending on the product's maturity and the development process, it may be appropriate to use different time frames such as months, weeks, or even years. And the team might choose to base the product categories on something different such as customer segments or strategic initiatives or different platforms it supports.

The purpose of this document is to allow each of the product stakeholders, including key customers, to coordinate their planning around this product development plan. So each milestone should be a meaningful bundle of new functionality that will have significant impact on the business. 

The product roadmap is not a complex document. Quite the opposite, it should strive to make it simple and easy for everyone in the organization to understand. Creating a roadmap with the right milestones on the right release dates in a way that implements the product strategy and has all stakeholders aligned around it is no mean feat.