Should I embark on a product roadmap?

Written par

GdeGConsulting

in

Marketing

A difficult decision

• It is a heavy lifting to collect and analyse large amounts of information from various sources, to unravel areas where the company does not know much, and to take up the challenge of filling the knowledge gaps.
• We will be calling on functions that are already focused on their own priorities.
• In an unpredictable world, does it make sense to issue a roadmap that will quickly become obsolete?
• General management focuses on results and concrete deliverables. Should I spend time on the operational translation of the strategy?
• Empiricists will object: “no need for that, we develop offers at the request of the customer”, “we prioritise the resolution of operational problems”.
• We will come across the reluctance of teams, entities, and country subsidiaries that have been empowered to be in charge and decide autonomously.
• The project will revisit in a more collegial arena decision points that were previously decided upon by certain actors alone.
• The story may find strong detractors. Some proposals may disturb entrenched preconceptions about the market, about some beliefs regarding the real strengths and weaknesses of the company. The choices made will be to the detriment of certain projects.

Yet a few signals point to the need to get started

• New market requirements: A customer wants to see the product roadmap and discuss whether it is aligned with their own roadmap. Competition is moving ahead, and you need to backfire. Or future regulations will impact the offering.
• Business transformation: It may involve renewing or expanding the offer: digitalisation, customer service, standardisation, refocusing or diversification…
• A less attractive offer: older products are making significant sales, and their replacement is still not planned. Too many offers are tailor-made, and this harms competitiveness. Or the company is losing business because the range is incomplete.
• Teams working in silos: R&D validates the developments, the timetable, and the priorities directly with general management. R&D criticises the sales teams for not communicating enough about market expectations. Sales people complain that R&D does not develop what customers need. There is no debate before the decision to do in-house, or to outsource. Budgets for some R&D projects are not in proportion with the business challenges.
• The tyranny of urgency: Development teams are exhausted and cannot cope with customer complaints. Product experts are running from one fire to another, with no time to prepare for the future.

Engaging in such a project unleashes new capacities for action

• The product roadmap is a communication and prioritisation tool. The same discourse is given to customers or internally, by the general management, R&D or the sales manager. For employees who want to contribute to the company’s ambitions, it is an indispensable compass.
• Its development is the right opportunity to raise the issues to be addressed: Divergent views on market expectations, developments, and priorities. The relative strengths and weaknesses of the company’s offer compared to the competition. The synchronisation of different contributing projects running in parallel.
• The discipline of the product plan provides economic benefits, through clarity of priorities, or targets on costs, standardisation, portfolio simplification etc. The long-term vision is a resource given to teams to find the best solutions.
• It provides an opportunity to enrich the dialogue with customers, suppliers, and other partners, and to achieve collaborative innovation. Feedback from stakeholders allows the interest of certain projects to be tested and useful feedback to be obtained.
• Communicating externally on the product roadmap is already behaving like a leader: a company that displays its ambitions, that discerns the underlying trends in the apparent chaos of business. A company that seeks the engagement of its employees and partners to succeed. A company that calls on its stakeholders to make its vision come true.

7 conditions for success

Once the decision has been taken to embark on the construction of a product roadmap, the marketing director should keep in mind seven conditions for success:

• Humility and audacity. Given the complexity of the exercise and the sensitivity of many topics, it cannot be a one-man show. The pilot must not position himself as an expert, nor as a solution provider.  He or she has a strong added value in indicating where the uncertainties are, and pointing out the unchartered territories. Audacity means relentlessly seeking out what can make the company stand out of the competitive pack. This is an opportunity window to adopt new perspectives that will rejuvenate the usual perceptions, and pave the way for new ideas.

• Think ahead. The long view brings out the slow but predictable structural changes.  One criterion for defining the right horizon is to think of the second following generation of supply in relation to the current generation sold on the market. An alternative is to mirror the horizon chosen by market leaders. The important thing is to get out of the comfort zone of the likely future.

• Start with the market, outside the company. Get in touch with the grass-root reality of the market, where customers face problems, experience frustrations, and express new expectations. Conducting in-depth studies and observations, immersing yourself. Testing a few innovative proposals directly, even in the early stages, to remove uncertainties. The time ‘lost’ in building a shared understanding of the market will be more than offset later by the teams buy-in and the implementation speed.

• Diversify contributions between those who know the market demand and those who work on the supply side.  Involve various stakeholders from time to time, such as customer service, sales, production engineering and management control.

• Differentiate between the product roadmap and the technology roadmap: the technology roadmap presents the evolution of the maturity of certain technical bricks necessary for the implementation of the product roadmap. It must remain confidential. Differentiation does not exclude a close interaction: when R&D eliminates technological barriers or lowers the cost of certain solutions, it will impact the product roadmap.  In return the business priorities of the product roadmap will influence the technological roadmap.

• Update regularly the roadmap: in line with approvals, test results, market events, exchanges with major customers, competitive actions.  Although it is a reference document, it is not graved in marble. A review, at least once a year, enables any necessary changes to be discussed.

• Nail the story carefully: use anecdotes and real cases observed during the market exploration phase to support your proposals. Similarly, for each major innovation project, the speaker will show side-by-side the business stakes and the efforts required. General management will appreciate the quality of the story, and the consistency checks you have carried out beforehand.