Product Roadmap FAQs

What is a product roadmap, and what are its main benefits?

A product roadmap describes how a product is likely to evolve. It outlines the specific outcomes the product aims to achieve, the value it should create. Applied effectively, it provides a continuity of purpose, bridges the gap between strategy and execution, aligns stakeholders and development teams, directs the product backlog, and helps acquire a development budget.

What are the drawbacks of traditional, feature-based product roadmaps?

Traditionally, a product roadmap is a list of features, which is mapped onto a timeline. While this approach is still popular at the time of writing, it has several drawbacks.

• A feature-based roadmap can make it hard to secure agreement, as stakeholders compete to get “their” features implemented. In the worst case, it resembles a loose collection of features that results in a Frankenstein product—an offering with a terrible value proposition and a horrible user experience.
• Such a roadmap anticipates features many months in advance. When innovation and change are present, it is extremely challenging, if not impossible, to get the roadmap right. In the worst case, the wrong features are implemented.
• A feature-based roadmap is often too detailed. This makes it more prone to change, creates an overlap with the product backlog, and increases the effort to keep the plan up to date.

How does an outcome-based product roadmap differ, and what are its advantages?

An outcome-based, goal-oriented roadmap focuses on product goals, such as acquiring customers, increasing engagement, or improving conversion, rather than features, like implementing single sign-on, reskinning the shopping cart, or improving search and navigation for an online store. Features are optional on an outcome-based roadmap and are only included if they serve a specific goal.

The benefits of this approach include strong value/outcome focus, improved stakeholder alignment, a stronger connection between the roadmap and backlog (using roadmap goals to direct the backlog), greater stability (goals change less often than features), and compatibility with OKRs (objectives and key results).

What roadmap template can I use?

Use a product roadmap template that is firmly based on outcomes like my GO Product Roadmap, shown in Figure 1. You can download the template together with a helpful checklist from my website.

Figure 1: The GO Product Roadmap

The template in Figure 1 contains five elements: The first one, Date, captures the date or time frame when an outcome should be met. The second element, Name, allows you to state a name if an outcome is delivered as a major release or new product version.

The third and most important element, Goal, describes the desired outcomes or benefits the product should create over the coming months. These goals should describe the specific value the product will create and answer the question of why it is worthwhile to (continue to) invest time, money, and energy in developing the product. Sample goals are to acquire new users, retain users by enhancing the user experience, or accelerate development by removing technical debt.

The fourth element, Features, describes the product capabilities necessary to reach the goal. Each feature must serve a goal. It must be coarse-grained, and no more than three to five features can belong to the same goal.

The final element, Metrics, states the measurements that help you determine if a goal has been met and if the desired value has been created. This ensures that the outcomes chosen are specific and measurable.

You can also watch me explain the GO Product Roadmap template in the video below.

Who should develop the product roadmap?

The product roadmap is best created by the product manager together with key stakeholders and development team representatives. This leverages the expertise of the individuals to create a realistic plan, creates clarity and alignment, and maximises the chances that people follow the roadmap.

A great way to achieve this is to run a collaborative workshop and co-create the product roadmap. However, the product manager should lead the workshop, ensure alignment with the product strategy, avoid weak compromises and make the final decision if no agreement can be reached.

How can you ensure that the roadmap is realistic?

An effective roadmap must be actionable and realistic, which is best achieved by the following three measures.

First, base it on a product strategy whose key assumptions have been tested. You can think of the product strategy as the roadmap’s foundation that helps you discover the right outcomes. At the same time, any roadmap goals have to help meet the user and customer needs, as well as the business goals stated in the strategy.

Second, ensure that the outcomes are realistic, that they can be achieved in the desired timeframes. Ask representatives from the development team(s) to highlight technical risks and concerns. Additionally, engage the key stakeholders if they have to help reach the outcomes, for example, if a marketer has to create the marketing strategy.

Remember: The outcomes on a product roadmap should be realistic goals that can be met within the desired time frames without expecting people to work overtime, not an aggressive stretch goal. A great way to achieve this is to involve the individuals in building the product roadmap, as mentioned in the answer to question five.

Third, regularly review the product roadmap and update it as necessary. You might find that one or more outcomes have to be adjusted, that the dates are no longer realistic, or that another piece of information is outdated. Additionally, a change in the product strategy usually requires a bigger roadmap update. As a rule of thumb, review the plan at least once every three months, preferably together with the people who helped you create it.

How should the product roadmap and product backlog relate to each other?

The product roadmap is a strategic plan that describes the product’s journey and the outcomes it should achieve, while the backlog is a tactical plan containing the details needed to progress the product. Applied correctly, the plans complement each other. The product roadmap paints the big picture, and the product backlog contains the details, including epics and user stories.

An effective way to connect the roadmap and backlog is to use the outcomes on the former to focus the latter, to determine which items the product backlog should contain, as I describe in more detail in the article 5 Tips for Stocking the Product Backlog.

Should roadmaps have dates?

Whether product roadmaps should have dates has been a topic of controversial debate in product management for many years. The answer depends, in my mind, on the roadmap audience.

If the roadmap is communicated to customers and users, if it is visible outside of the company developing and providing the product, it should not contain dates. Use large timeframes instead, for instance, in the first half of 2026 or just in 2026.

However, if the roadmap is used internally to align the stakeholders and guide the development teams, I recommend using dates or specific timeframes, like 12^th January 2026 and Q1 2026. This helps you ensure that the plan is realistic, and it helps you guide the development effort by balancing goal achievement and on-time delivery.

For more guidance, see the article Should Product Roadmaps Have Dates?

What is the difference between the product roadmap and a release/delivery plan?

The product roadmap serves as the high-level guide that maps out the journey for the product and states the benefits the product should offer over a longer period, for example, 12 months. The release plan, also referred to as a delivery plan, helps track and forecast the development effort. Both plans are important. But they fulfil different objectives and should be kept separate.

An effective way to relate them is to use the release plan to anticipate and record the progress towards a goal on the roadmap. This creates transparency about the development progress and enables trading off goal achievement, on-time delivery, and budget adherence. For more information, refer to the article The Product Roadmap and the Release Plan.

What are common mistakes to avoid when creating product roadmaps?

Avoid the following five common product roadmapping mistakes.

• Letting stakeholders dictate roadmap contents instead of aligning the plan with the product strategy. For more guidance, see the articles 5 Tips for Saying No to Stakeholders and Making Effective Product Decisions: Tips for Deciding with Stakeholders and Dev Teams.
• Treating the roadmap as a fixed plan rather than a flexible, evolving guide that is regularly reviewed and adapted, at least once every three months.
• Setting overambitious goals that lead to unsustainable workloads (“death marches”) instead of realistic ones that can be achieved at a sustainable pace.
• Including detailed items like user stories and creating an overlap with the product backlog instead of keeping the roadmap as a high-level plan, and using the backlog to capture detailed functionality, as I describe in more detail in the article The Product Roadmap and the Product Backlog.
• Confusing the roadmap with a release plan instead of using a separate artefact focused on tracking and forecasting the development effort. See the article The Product Roadmap and the Release Plan.

You can find more guidance in the article 10 Product Roadmapping Mistakes to Avoid.