What information does each department and stakeholder care about? What will affect their work the most?
at the business level, the strategic level, the technology level
EngineeringWhat they care about: Scalability, code, integrity of work, efficiency of work (not taking one step forward and two steps back), building features that add actual value (not just perceived value).
How to communicate your roadmap for successful buy-in: Engineering wants to understand the value for their effort. For developers, integrity is a top priority, and they’ll push back on features that seem difficult to scale or solutions that seem inelegant. You need to be able to explain the intrinsic value of each feature and milestone: value to the business, value to customers, value towards improving the product. Set realistic time frames (i.e. pad your estimates!), while striking a balance between your sense of urgency and their limited resources.
What to show them: Focus on developer-oriented themes, like scalability, usability, quality, performance, infrastructure and features. And keep it short term!
“We want to know when something is coming to market so we can sell against that delivery, whether it's to existing or new customers, or ones we lost. Secondly, we like to have that roadmap so we can convey confidence to our customers for where we're going and when (and of course, the why behind those decisions). All of that is valuable for sales to see on a product roadmap, both internally and externally, because it impacts how we approach our messaging."
What they care about: WHAT they can promise customers and WHEN those will be ready, building trust and loyalty, performance improvements for the product, ways to reduce churn.How to communicate your roadmap for successful buy-in: Focus on the timeline. When will different outputs be ready? What can they promise customers and prospects right now? Show how the roadmap will introduce ways to reduce churn and improve conversion. And go big: highlight how the needs of large clients will be met, and how your product roadmap creates opportunities for significant deals.What to show them: The what and the when. Give them a transparent timeline they can communicate to customers and users. (Some schools of thought around roadmaps believe that you should keep dates out of the roadmap due to the risk of committing to something that might not be delivered. Assess that risk internally and decide if a dateless approach works best for you.)
“CX/CS teams need visibility into the level of confidence around the roadmap plan. Are there any blockers, risks or dependencies that might put a wedge on a timeline? Who is the key contact if we have questions about any delays? Will a feature be delivered as a final version or should customers expect updates post-release? CS/CX need this information in order to provide informed answers to customer questions and concerns; to show them that the company is working towards solving the problems they care about.”
For a more in-depth look at how to present the roadmap to execs, check out this guide: Managing executives in the roadmapping processWhat they care about: The business goals and how the plan depicted by the roadmap will help the company achieve them. They want to see a strong connection between the development initiatives and the priorities of the business. Execs are more concerned with the investments a company is making (resource allocation) and how those investments will create a return.How to communicate your roadmap for successful buy-in: The CEO of the company tends to be pretty hands-on with most facets of the company, and especially with the product roadmap. CEOs think high-level and inter-departmental, so make sure your roadmap ties each initiative to customer value and business goals.What to show them: The Exec team will want to see what features you’re adding, but more importantly, they’ll want to see how the initiatives will help the product capture the market. They also want to understand risk and internal efficiencies (if there are any).
What they care about: It’s up to your company whether or not you share a roadmap with customers. But if you decide to have a customer-facing roadmap, it’s important that they see the value that they can anticipate your product will deliver.What to show them: Customer-facing roadmaps should not include the what, how and when you’d show internal teams (so, no dates, documentation or team capacity). The axiom here is: under-promise and over-deliver! Focus on the things they care about achieving, and define roadmap themes around those categories.
