pm-roadmap

Product Roadmap Planning

Framework for building outcome-focused, theme-based roadmaps.

Roadmap Structure

Strategic Goal
├── Theme 1: [Outcome-focused name]
│   ├── Now: [Initiative with success metric]
│   ├── Next: [Initiative with success metric]
│   └── Later: [Initiative with success metric]
├── Theme 2: [Outcome-focused name]
│   ├── Now: ...
│   └── Next: ...
└── Theme 3: [Outcome-focused name]
    └── ...

Roadmap Template

# Product Roadmap: [Product/Team]
**Last Updated:** YYYY-MM-DD | **Owner:** [PM Name]
**Strategic Goal:** [One sentence]

## Theme 1: [Outcome, not feature name]
**Why:** [Business/user outcome this theme drives]
**Success Metric:** [How we know this theme is working]

### Now (Current Quarter)
| Initiative | Outcome | Status | Owner |
|-----------|---------|--------|-------|
| [Initiative] | [Measurable result] | [🟢/🟡/🔴] | [Team] |

### Next (Next Quarter)
| Initiative | Outcome | Confidence | Dependencies |
|-----------|---------|------------|--------------|
| [Initiative] | [Expected result] | [High/Med/Low] | [Blockers] |

### Later (Future)
| Initiative | Outcome | Open Questions |
|-----------|---------|----------------|
| [Initiative] | [Hypothesis] | [What we need to learn] |

## Decisions & Trade-offs
| Decision | Options Considered | Chosen | Rationale |
|----------|-------------------|--------|-----------|
| [What] | [A, B, C] | [B] | [Why] |

## What We're NOT Doing (and Why)
- [Feature/initiative]: [Reason for exclusion]

Time Horizons

Horizon	Commitment Level	Detail Level	Changes
Now	Committed	High (initiatives, owners, metrics)	Rare
Next	Planned	Medium (initiatives, outcomes)	Monthly
Later	Exploratory	Low (themes, hypotheses)	Frequently

Audience-Specific Views

Audience	Show	Hide
Executive	Themes, outcomes, strategic alignment	Implementation details
Engineering	Initiatives, dependencies, sizing	Business rationale
Sales/CS	Timeline, customer impact, messaging	Technical details
Full team	Everything	Nothing

Building Process

1. Gather inputs — strategic goals, OKRs, discovery findings, tech debt
2. Group into themes — cluster related work by outcome, not feature type
3. Prioritize themes — use pm-prioritization (RICE/ICE/OST)
4. Place in horizons — Now=committed, Next=planned, Later=exploratory
5. Define success — each theme needs a measurable outcome
6. Identify dependencies — cross-team blockers, technical prerequisites
7. Create audience views — tailor detail level per stakeholder group
8. Review cadence — monthly for Now/Next, quarterly for Later

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Problem	Instead
Feature list roadmap	No strategic context	Theme by outcome
Date-driven promises	Creates false precision	Use horizons
No "not doing" section	Scope creep	Explicitly exclude
Static document	Stale in weeks	Set review cadence
One view for all	Wrong detail level	Audience-specific views