The Problems with Product Roadmaps: Understanding the Inconvenient Truths

The Problems with Product Roadmaps

Even with the best of intentions, product roadmaps often lead to very poor business results. I refer to the reasons for this as the two inconvenient truths about product management.

The First Inconvenient Truth

At least half of our product ideas are simply not going to work. This inconvenient truth can be attributed to several factors:

1. Value Misalignment: Sometimes, customers just aren't as excited about an idea as we are. Despite our enthusiasm, they choose not to use or buy the product because it doesn't deliver the value they seek. This is the most common situation.

2. Usability Issues: There are instances where customers do want to use a product, but find it so complicated that it's more trouble than it's worth. Even if the idea has potential, poor usability leads to low adoption rates.

3. Feasibility Challenges: Occasionally, customers might have loved the product idea, but the reality of building it turns out to be far more complex and costly than initially anticipated. When the time and resources required to deliver are too high, the idea gets shelved.

4. Business Viability Concerns: Sometimes, we encounter serious legal, financial, or business constraints that prevent the product from launching, regardless of its potential value.

The Second Inconvenient Truth

Even for those ideas that prove to be valuable, usable, feasible, and viable, it typically takes several iterations to achieve the business value that management was hoping for. This is often referred to as "time to money." 

In my experience, there is no escaping these inconvenient truths. I've had the opportunity to work with many truly exceptional product teams, and the difference between weak and strong teams lies in how they deal with these truths.

Weak Teams vs. Strong Teams

Weak teams plod through their assigned roadmaps month after month. When something doesn't work (which happens often), they first blame the stakeholder who requested the feature. They then try to schedule another iteration on the roadmap or suggest a redesign, hoping the new approach will solve the problem. If they have enough time and money, they may eventually succeed, provided management doesn't run out of patience first—a big if.

Strong teams, in contrast, understand and embrace these truths. They are adept at quickly tackling risks, no matter where the idea originated, and they iterate rapidly to find effective solutions. This is the essence of product discovery, which I view as the most important core competency of a product organization.

If we can prototype and test ideas with users, customers, engineers, and business stakeholders in hours and days rather than in weeks and months, it changes the dynamics and, most importantly, the results.

The Real Problem with Roadmaps

The issue isn't the list of ideas on the roadmap. Ideas, in themselves, aren't harmful. The problem arises when you put a list of ideas on a document entitled "roadmap." No matter how many disclaimers you add, people across the company will interpret the items as commitments. This is the crux of the problem because now you're committed to building and delivering these ideas, even when they don't solve the underlying problem.

High-Integrity Commitments

Don't misinterpret this: sometimes, we do need to commit to a delivery on a specific date. We try to minimize these cases, but there are always some. However, we need to make what is called a high-integrity commitment. This concept will be discussed in detail later, but the key takeaway here is that we need to solve the underlying problem, not just deliver a feature.

In conclusion, understanding and addressing the two inconvenient truths about product management can transform how we approach product roadmaps. By focusing on rapid iteration and effective problem-solving, strong product teams can navigate these challenges and deliver real value.