How important is a product roadmap?
Product Roadmap is an visual representation of the vision, priorities, growth and progress of a product around a product strategy that is aligned with all faces of the business.
Having a product roadmap defined is crucial as it communicates what is going to be built at what point of time. It is important that during the process of building product roadmap, all the stakeholders are involved including sales, product, marketing etc., otherwise it would be a mess.
A product roadmap is helpful for
- Product team to understand what they need to develop
- Sales team to educate their users on the new features and its benefits
- Business to have a view on the financial numbers that it is going to generate
- HR to plan on new recruitments and more
We have seen the importance of Product Roadmap, but how relevant it is in real world. I have heard from PM's saying the work they do is not always what is defined in the roadmap. In an agile env, it is highly unlikely that the roadmap stays relevant to the actuals as it is liable to change often.
I do have an experience where we defined a product roadmap initially, but didnt adhere to it during the course of development.
What is your experience?