What are the Best Techniques to Create a Product Roadmap?

What should manufacturers know about developing an effective product roadmap? And what are the best product roadmap software solutions for manufacturers to consider? Get insights in the latest post from Gocious, one of the foremost names in product roadmap management. 

Best Techniques to Create a Product Roadmap

 Shepherding a product from its initial inception to its official launch is no easy feat. Typically, it takes an entire product management team, working in conjunction with sales, marketing, and other departments, just to ensure the product development aligns with broader business goals. 

In order to keep everyone on the same page, working with consistent information, and oriented toward the same objectives, it may be helpful to have a product roadmap. One of the best ways to develop a product roadmap is to equip your team with the best product roadmap software; if that’s something that interests you, take a moment to learn more about Gocious. 

What is a Product Roadmap? 

 It may also be helpful to step back and consider what a product roadmap actually is, and how it can benefit manufacturers. 

Basically, a product roadmap provides a high-level summary, mapping out the vision and direction for the product in question. A product roadmap furnishes all team members and stakeholders with relevant information, including details about the product timeline, resources required, features, and more. A product roadmap might highlight information about the suppliers and distributors needed to get the product to market, and the buyer personae the marketing team will use to sell the product. And a really robust product roadmap, such as one developed with Gocious’ software, may also reveal some basic cost and revenue projections. 

Creating a Product Roadmap Requires Ongoing Revision 

 As manufacturers think about developing their own product roadmap template, it’s important to remember that this won’t be a one-and-done project. 

You will always begin by considering business and customer objectives, deciding which metrics to track as you measure your progress toward meeting these goals over time. You’ll naturally develop plans to act on those metrics, which becomes your product strategy. 

As you put that roadmap in action, however, you also have to be prepared to address changes that arise. Specifically, there are a few different things that can happen each week, month, or year: 

• As you get closer and closer to achieving a milestone, you also gain more information about that milestone, which you can use to enhance your strategy. For example, you may learn that achieving a certain level of market penetration will actually increase profits more than initially expected. 
• You identify gaps and opportunities in your roadmap. For example, you may realize that by following your current roadmap, you’ll ultimately fall short of a target number, whether its revenue or CO2 emissions. This requires you to amend your roadmap. 

• You experience disruptions that cause delays or shifts in realizing the capabilities your product can offer. For example, because of a microchip shortage, you cannot build a car with an HUD display as you’d initially hoped. This will impact not just the one car, but potentially the entire product portfolio. Again, you’ll need to adjust. 

The bottom line: Once your product strategy is set in motion, you’ll need to keep revisiting and adjusting it to ensure success. And, each region, division, or sector will need to update and report their progress so that, globally and systemically, your business can use its resources as judiciously as possible. 

What’s the Best Product Roadmap Software for Manufacturers?
As you consider software solutions for your product roadmap needs, keep in mind that
Gocious is the software of choice for manufacturers across the world. 

Gocious goes beyond traditional product roadmap management software, allowing you to align your product journey with revenue considerations, to manage an entire product portfolio, and to follow an entire product lifecycle, even beyond the point of deployment. 

Ready to learn more about what makes Gocious the best product roadmap software for manufacturers? Schedule a demo today.