A Roadmap Provides a Single Source of the Truth—with Multiple Views for Different Audiences
Can you have different versions of a roadmap for different people? This is one of the topics I explore with Phil Hornby, my co-host at Talking Roadmaps.
In his work helping Product teams create products that deliver at scale, Phil has come to look at roadmaps through a variety of lenses: tactical, operational, and strategic. And while he strongly believes a roadmap should provide “a single source of truth” that communicates overall strategy, he also contends that you can benefit from multiple roadmap versions, or views, for different audiences.
Welcome to part-2 of our Minimal Viable Product (MVP)
Just as with Episode #1, we decided to interview each other and considered it an MVP. The first episode gave Phil a chance to explore my approach to roadmapping. In this episode, I delved into Phil’s roadmapping experience as a highly experienced product person, leader, and trainer.
At Scale Business Performance Phil provides training and consulting to help product teams design, deliver, and market successful products. Over the years, he’s upskilled thousands of people across hundreds of companies, from startups to multinationals.
We covered a lot of ground in this 30-minute episode, and one of the most interesting things we discussed was the value of creating multiple versions, or views, of this “single source of truth” we call a roadmap.
What does it mean to have multiple views of a roadmap?
Phil contends that while the purpose of a roadmap is to strategically communicate the direction of the company and its larger vision, that doesn’t mean everyone has to work from the same document.
“There should be one roadmap, but different people [will be] seeing different versions or views.”
Phil often finds himself working with four or five different versions of a roadmap. Here are some examples of what different roadmap views you might have, with each tailored to a specific audience. Note that I’ve divided this list between internal views and customer-facing views, which might be an important distinction if you are worried that sharing your roadmap could impact your competitive position.
Internal-facing roadmap views
What are some other key takeaways from Episode #2?
- The best CEOs are like “big product managers,” guiding with influence rather than authority.
- Make roadmaps as visually appealing as possible to support the story-telling element.
- Don’t make your roadmap do the job of 10 different documents, otherwise you’ll reduce its effectiveness.
- Avoid the temptation to put too many dates on your roadmap.
- Roadmaps should identify problems you want to solve for your customers, rather than specific solutions.
Curious to learn more? Watch Episode #2
Senior Executives: This view is higher-level than others, focusing on long-term, directional strategy. It encapsulates the path while omitting the more granular operational details.
Operational & Development Teams: This view tends to have a shorter, narrower scope and includes more detail. It’s not the same as a release plan, focusing more on problems you’re solving than specific solutions and dates, but it should correlate with the release plan.
External-facing roadmap views
Prospective Customers: This view must balance the need for a level of confidentiality with the sales benefit of sharing your vision with prospects to win business.
Existing Customers: Existing customers will likely receive more details about your product strategy than the prospect will, but once again you’ll want to strike the right balance between transparency and confidentiality.
Partners: Partners may also benefit from seeing a view of the roadmap that shows the strategic direction of your company as it pertains to their work with you.
“It’s a bit of a catch-22 in that you want to share lots of information so you can win the business, but if you share all the information it’s going to potentially end up in the hands of competitors, you have to assume that if you’ve shared it externally, the competitors have seen it.”
Phil looks at external views in terms of “layers of trust,” and it's important to think carefully about how much you trust people outside your organisation. He advises us to think carefully about the level of granularity you offer prospects, customers, and partners in your various roadmap views. But at the same time, he also highlights how we have to assume we can out-execute our competition and that even if competitors plan to deliver the essentially the same solution they will end up with something different because they will bring their own context and constraints to the delivery.
What if you only want one version?
Now, you might be thinking—it’s all well and good for those who want to keep multiple roadmap views going simultaneously, but what do you do if you only have the time and resources to maintain a single version?
In the end, the long-term, strategic roadmap view is going to guide communication and shape the big-picture strategy, which is what roadmapping is all about.
