Hey everyone,
I’ve been thinking a lot about the inherent tension in our roadmaps lately. For years, many of us have been pushed to create roadmaps that look like a release plan—a committed list of features with timelines. Stakeholders, especially in sales and marketing, love the certainty. It feels like a promise.
But is that the real job of a roadmap? I’d argue it’s not. A roadmap shouldn’t be a project plan in disguise. It should be a statement of strategic intent, a communication tool focused on the customer and business outcomes we’re driving towards. When we lock ourselves into a feature-based timeline, we create a ‘feature factory.’ We lose the agility to respond to user research, market shifts, or new data. We stop focusing on solving problems and start focusing on shipping features, whether or not they actually deliver value.
This shift from a ‘promise’ of features to a ‘strategy’ of outcomes is more than just semantics; it’s a fundamental change in how we collaborate with our teams and manage stakeholder expectations. It prioritizes learning and adaptation over rigid, upfront planning.
So, here’s my question for the community: How do you balance the need for strategic flexibility in your roadmap with stakeholders’ demands for concrete timelines and feature commitments?