Product Catalyst - John Utz
Product knowledge delivered in 10 minutes or less by me, a Global Digital Chief Product Officer, 0-20M 3x, Led $1B plus in ARR, ex. Startup, Fortune 100 Product Leader & Consultant with PwC / Strategy&.
Building products and product companies is hard. Over the years, I've learned a lot of lessons by creating digital products and bringing them from concept to market. This experience includes founding and working at startups, consulting for the Fortune 500, and serving as a product leader at some of the largest companies in the world. If I can save you even an ounce of pain through what I share, I will feel I have accomplished what I set out to do.
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Product Catalyst - John Utz
Knowing why roadmaps cause products to fail is half the battle.
You also need to know what you can do about it.
When talking with and training product managers, I highlight three specific actions that prevent the roadmap from causing product failure.
1. No strategy, no go.
You can’t create a successful product roadmap if there is no strategy. If you are thrown into a situation where there is no strategy, you don’t have access to it, or it’s unclear, do the right thing — stop. If you are under pressure to deliver, acknowledge the situation with the team and do what I did — create it in parallel. Without a strategy, your roadmap will become a collection of random features that provide no clear direction to the team.
2. Question everything.
Why is a powerful question. Getting to the heart of what’s on the roadmap or requested will help you understand whether it’s essential and a priority. It will also prevent your roadmap from becoming overly rigid. Don’t simply accept things regardless of who requests them. If you don’t understand why a feature was requested or what it is, the team will be unclear on what to deliver. And without clear value and outcomes, you will provide features no one uses. Delete, delete, delete.
3. Be selective.
This is a big one. Even if you have a strategy and clearly understand the value and requirements of each feature, you have to be selective. You can’t do everything. You must prioritize. Prioritization based on a clear and transparent framework that accounts for capacity and constraints is critical to success. Again, you must be willing to delete, delete, delete. Being selective based on the strategy, the target outcomes, and constraints lead to a realistic roadmap the team can get behind.
Ultimately, product teams look to product managers to create a roadmap they can believe in, understand, and deliver, which leads to winning in the market. It’s a tough job, but you can do it.
1 year ago | [YT] | 0
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Product Catalyst - John Utz
What's the biggest risk to product roadmaps?
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