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Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty
A good product roadmap is one of the most important and influential documents an organization can develop, publish, and continuously update. In fact, this one document can steer an entire organization when it comes to delivering on company strategy.
This practical guide teaches you how to create an effective product roadmap, and demonstrates how to use the roadmap to align stakeholders and prioritize ideas and requests. With it, you'll learn to communicate how your products will make your customers and organization successful.
Whether you're a product manager, product owner, business analyst, program manager, project manager, scrum master, lead developer, designer, development manager, entrepreneur, or business owner, this book will show you how
Articulate an inspiring vision and goals for your product
Prioritize ruthlessly and scientifically
Protect against pursuing seemingly good ideas without evaluation and prioritization
Ensure alignment with stakeholders
Inspire loyalty and over--delivery from your team
Get your sales team working with you instead of against you
Bring a user- and buyer--centric approach to planning and decision-making
Anticipate opportunities and stay ahead of the game
Publish a comprehensive roadmap without over-committing
This practical guide teaches you how to create an effective product roadmap, and demonstrates how to use the roadmap to align stakeholders and prioritize ideas and requests. With it, you'll learn to communicate how your products will make your customers and organization successful.
Whether you're a product manager, product owner, business analyst, program manager, project manager, scrum master, lead developer, designer, development manager, entrepreneur, or business owner, this book will show you how
Articulate an inspiring vision and goals for your product
Prioritize ruthlessly and scientifically
Protect against pursuing seemingly good ideas without evaluation and prioritization
Ensure alignment with stakeholders
Inspire loyalty and over--delivery from your team
Get your sales team working with you instead of against you
Bring a user- and buyer--centric approach to planning and decision-making
Anticipate opportunities and stay ahead of the game
Publish a comprehensive roadmap without over-committing
358 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 26, 2017
760 people are currently reading
3171 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
April 3, 2018
This book describes a useful process for creating a product roadmap. The key idea is that roadmaps should not be about specific features. Instead, they should be for aligning vision, objectives, and the themes that are necessary to meet those objectives (with high level time frames). This high level view allows teams and their stakeholders to agree on general direction without committing to specific features (and getting caught up in endless discussions of timelines and technical feasibility). Specific features are important, and separating them from the roadmap makes sure that the features are developed in the context of the product goals and do not become the ends.
Since the terms vision, objective, and theme are used in different ways across different processes, it is worth defining them briefly. The product vision is why the product exists at all. This includes who the product is for, what they need, and the value that the product provides to meet that need for that customer.
In particular, a vision is not a business objective. Selling a certain number of units may be a valuable and necessary business objective, but it does not say why the product exists for the customer. Defining these objectives is the second important part of the roadmap. Business objectives describe what needs to happen for the product to successfully fulfill the building and get customers to adopt the product. It is important to have metrics, also called key performance indicators (KPIs), which define whether or not those objectives are being met. Paired together this maps cleanly onto the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework that many companies use. These objectives and their KPIs should be focused on outcomes, not outputs. That is, they should be focused on the value that is being provided, not the specific means that are being implemented to try to achieve those objectives.
Themes define what would need to be true to meet the vision and the business objectives. These are, in essence, the smaller customer needs and problems that add up to the larger goals. One way to think of themes is to think of them as what you get if you work backward from the vision one or two steps. Themes define problems that need to be solved and not the solutions to those problems; the roadmap is about direction, not features. If a vision is large enough, it may be useful to divide themes into more granular subthemes, but more layers than that probably means that the team is trying to do too many things.
The authors give an example of a garden hose where the vision is perfecting lawns by perfecting water delivery, one of the themes is indestructibility of the hose, and a subtheme is no leaks. The vision makes it clear what value is being delivered for users. The theme indicates a requirement for achieving that vision. The subtheme describes a significant element of fulfilling that requirement.
The chapter on developing themes shared a really useful tool for connecting themes to development: the opportunity-solution tree (discussed in more depth in this article by Teresa Torres -- see the image at the end of the article for the tl;dr). The opportunity-solution tree has an objective/desired outcome at the root. Its children are the different themes/opportunities. The children of each theme are the different features/solutions. Each feature has as children a number of experiments to help determine exactly how it should be executed. What I like about making this tree explicit is that it forces every experiment and every feature to relate back to an objective and, ultimately, the product vision.
The rest of the book goes into these elements in more depth and discusses when and how to discuss specifics like features and detailed timelines in relation to the roadmap. It also discusses things like getting alignment and updating the roadmap. In my opinion, the second half of the book felt a bit padded, hence the lower review. The alignment chapter is a good example. There is nothing there that is specific to roadmaps and what is there is fairly generic.
Since the terms vision, objective, and theme are used in different ways across different processes, it is worth defining them briefly. The product vision is why the product exists at all. This includes who the product is for, what they need, and the value that the product provides to meet that need for that customer.
In particular, a vision is not a business objective. Selling a certain number of units may be a valuable and necessary business objective, but it does not say why the product exists for the customer. Defining these objectives is the second important part of the roadmap. Business objectives describe what needs to happen for the product to successfully fulfill the building and get customers to adopt the product. It is important to have metrics, also called key performance indicators (KPIs), which define whether or not those objectives are being met. Paired together this maps cleanly onto the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework that many companies use. These objectives and their KPIs should be focused on outcomes, not outputs. That is, they should be focused on the value that is being provided, not the specific means that are being implemented to try to achieve those objectives.
Themes define what would need to be true to meet the vision and the business objectives. These are, in essence, the smaller customer needs and problems that add up to the larger goals. One way to think of themes is to think of them as what you get if you work backward from the vision one or two steps. Themes define problems that need to be solved and not the solutions to those problems; the roadmap is about direction, not features. If a vision is large enough, it may be useful to divide themes into more granular subthemes, but more layers than that probably means that the team is trying to do too many things.
The authors give an example of a garden hose where the vision is perfecting lawns by perfecting water delivery, one of the themes is indestructibility of the hose, and a subtheme is no leaks. The vision makes it clear what value is being delivered for users. The theme indicates a requirement for achieving that vision. The subtheme describes a significant element of fulfilling that requirement.
The chapter on developing themes shared a really useful tool for connecting themes to development: the opportunity-solution tree (discussed in more depth in this article by Teresa Torres -- see the image at the end of the article for the tl;dr). The opportunity-solution tree has an objective/desired outcome at the root. Its children are the different themes/opportunities. The children of each theme are the different features/solutions. Each feature has as children a number of experiments to help determine exactly how it should be executed. What I like about making this tree explicit is that it forces every experiment and every feature to relate back to an objective and, ultimately, the product vision.
The rest of the book goes into these elements in more depth and discusses when and how to discuss specifics like features and detailed timelines in relation to the roadmap. It also discusses things like getting alignment and updating the roadmap. In my opinion, the second half of the book felt a bit padded, hence the lower review. The alignment chapter is a good example. There is nothing there that is specific to roadmaps and what is there is fairly generic.
February 17, 2021
The authors did a nice work by linking the product vision to features. Actually working on organization plans in a strategic context to focus and delivery value to customer, embrace learning, working on priorities and get people excited.
They also discuss about making promisses about the product state future and fundamentally differentiate the roadmap from project plan and release plan.
I actually like the research they did, I hope it would be my starter book.
The printed copy is beautiful, easy to read. The are some erros like discussions about figure that isn’t anywhere. I also believe that there are many page to discuss things. They seem repetitive and sometimes “talkative”.
But in the end, I like it but expected more (or less: more directed.)
They also discuss about making promisses about the product state future and fundamentally differentiate the roadmap from project plan and release plan.
I actually like the research they did, I hope it would be my starter book.
The printed copy is beautiful, easy to read. The are some erros like discussions about figure that isn’t anywhere. I also believe that there are many page to discuss things. They seem repetitive and sometimes “talkative”.
But in the end, I like it but expected more (or less: more directed.)
December 6, 2024
Agile practices of project management have transformed how software is developed. Planning an entire project from the start often leads to unmet objectives and cost overruns. Agile instead proposes to start small by developing a minimal viable product and growing one feature at a time. In an age of the Internet’s instantaneity, continual deployment makes agile an achievable possibility. These authors, whose careers have all been hewn in software to some degree, propose undertaking the same transformation with product management. Thus, instead of fixed plans, product roadmaps can become living documents responsive to feedback from various stakeholders.
Before I get too far, let me address the unusual shape of the book. Yes, it’s a wide book instead of conforming to the traditional pattern of tall books. One of the authors has extensive experience in graphic design, so he seems to have aided in this book’s beautification. Both approaches embody a risk, but the final product pulls it off. While unusual and unorthodox, reading the book was a pleasureful experience. As someone who reads a lot of books, I found it nice to experience a change of approach.
I’m currently writing roadmaps for a series of products in my job, and this book helped me polish nuances in those plans. I established a GitHub project to house Markdown versions of my documentation so that they will become living documents under version control. The authors expressed sentiments that I lacked words to convey better than I ever could. Software is a living industry no longer fixed by hard deadlines from a “waterfall” approach. Continual development, integration, and deployment will surely continue to serve as paradigms for the future.
While this book did express thoughts I anticipated in my gut, its contents were not earth-shaking to someone already experienced in agile methods. The conceptual leap from software development to product management wasn’t all that great. They did bring out details that my work will benefit from, and I’m grateful to have spent time reading this work. However, potential readers should be aware while it’s really good, the book does not convey totally novel concept.
The authors made some attempt to generalize its application to product managers in all technology fields that rely on research and development. It remains very focused on the field of software. IT plays a major role in almost every organization these days, so a software-centered approach seems honest. I still think that it doesn’t escape the field of software product management enough to generalize too broadly. Continual deployment isn’t possible in physical domains. Nonetheless, all product managers should read this book to improve their skillset. Staying agile with a living product plan is an idea whose time has come.
Before I get too far, let me address the unusual shape of the book. Yes, it’s a wide book instead of conforming to the traditional pattern of tall books. One of the authors has extensive experience in graphic design, so he seems to have aided in this book’s beautification. Both approaches embody a risk, but the final product pulls it off. While unusual and unorthodox, reading the book was a pleasureful experience. As someone who reads a lot of books, I found it nice to experience a change of approach.
I’m currently writing roadmaps for a series of products in my job, and this book helped me polish nuances in those plans. I established a GitHub project to house Markdown versions of my documentation so that they will become living documents under version control. The authors expressed sentiments that I lacked words to convey better than I ever could. Software is a living industry no longer fixed by hard deadlines from a “waterfall” approach. Continual development, integration, and deployment will surely continue to serve as paradigms for the future.
While this book did express thoughts I anticipated in my gut, its contents were not earth-shaking to someone already experienced in agile methods. The conceptual leap from software development to product management wasn’t all that great. They did bring out details that my work will benefit from, and I’m grateful to have spent time reading this work. However, potential readers should be aware while it’s really good, the book does not convey totally novel concept.
The authors made some attempt to generalize its application to product managers in all technology fields that rely on research and development. It remains very focused on the field of software. IT plays a major role in almost every organization these days, so a software-centered approach seems honest. I still think that it doesn’t escape the field of software product management enough to generalize too broadly. Continual deployment isn’t possible in physical domains. Nonetheless, all product managers should read this book to improve their skillset. Staying agile with a living product plan is an idea whose time has come.
March 3, 2021
Creating product roadmaps is one of the most important tasks a Product Manager has to build and maintain to be able to communicate their plan and vision with the entire team and this book has a very good approach on how to succeed at this.
I liked the way roadmaps are redefined as a structure and especially what kind of components we can add in every roadmap to make it easy to read and follow. This is a hard thing to do by itself and thinking backwards (start with the end in mind), we need to think who will read the roadmap (more on that later) so that we can surface the components they need the most.
The most interesting part is how you share your roadmap and it changes the whole idea of why you are building it. I've been more open in the past with such information, but now I understand better that although openness and transparency is a good thing in general, it can create uncertainties, false-commitments and over-expectations from the teams around you. We should be open, but with clear context.
If I could choose a chapter to invest and let it guide me for the future, that would be the one about shuttle diplomacy (chapter 8). We are always trying to express ourselves with data (data-driven approaches) or customer requests (customer-oriented), but there are more forces that we need to handle and negotiate, and building rapport includes diplomacy.
I liked the way roadmaps are redefined as a structure and especially what kind of components we can add in every roadmap to make it easy to read and follow. This is a hard thing to do by itself and thinking backwards (start with the end in mind), we need to think who will read the roadmap (more on that later) so that we can surface the components they need the most.
The most interesting part is how you share your roadmap and it changes the whole idea of why you are building it. I've been more open in the past with such information, but now I understand better that although openness and transparency is a good thing in general, it can create uncertainties, false-commitments and over-expectations from the teams around you. We should be open, but with clear context.
If I could choose a chapter to invest and let it guide me for the future, that would be the one about shuttle diplomacy (chapter 8). We are always trying to express ourselves with data (data-driven approaches) or customer requests (customer-oriented), but there are more forces that we need to handle and negotiate, and building rapport includes diplomacy.
November 19, 2023
Amazing read with lots of useful details on navigating the challenging world of product management! Only makes sense to read if you are already practicing product management or performing an adjacent function like product marketing or product development.
March 26, 2018
Read the full review at my blog
tl;dr – Product Roadmaps Relaunched is an excellent guide for creating and maintaining product roadmaps.
The roadmap is a critical — and frequently missed — opportunity to articulate why you are doing this product, why it’s important, and why the things on it are absolutely vital to success.
What is the book about?
Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty is written by C. Todd Lombardo, Bruce McCarthy, Evan Ryan and Michael Connors, all of whom are experienced product leaders.
The premise behind this book is straightforward. Product Roadmaps, which were once a staple in traditional hardware product companies have lost their charm in this new and dynamic world of digital products. This book takes Product Roadmaps into an agile and more chaotic world where nothing is certain and things change rapidly. It talks about the need for roadmaps, how to create and maintain them as well as getting buy in for them from multiple stakeholders.
What does this book cover?
Product Roadmaps Relaunched is a short book with 11 chapters that covers the following topics.
- Introduction to roadmaps
- What makes a roadmap
- How to gather inputs to make a roadmap
- Linking the vision & strategy to the roadmap
- the importance of themes
- Making your roadmap richer
- Prioritization
- Getting Buy-in (two chapters)
- Maintaining your roadmap
- Relaunching roadmaps in your organization
- Every chapter is independent of the other and is followed by a summary.
Read the full review at my blog
tl;dr – Product Roadmaps Relaunched is an excellent guide for creating and maintaining product roadmaps.
The roadmap is a critical — and frequently missed — opportunity to articulate why you are doing this product, why it’s important, and why the things on it are absolutely vital to success.
What is the book about?
Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty is written by C. Todd Lombardo, Bruce McCarthy, Evan Ryan and Michael Connors, all of whom are experienced product leaders.
The premise behind this book is straightforward. Product Roadmaps, which were once a staple in traditional hardware product companies have lost their charm in this new and dynamic world of digital products. This book takes Product Roadmaps into an agile and more chaotic world where nothing is certain and things change rapidly. It talks about the need for roadmaps, how to create and maintain them as well as getting buy in for them from multiple stakeholders.
What does this book cover?
Product Roadmaps Relaunched is a short book with 11 chapters that covers the following topics.
- Introduction to roadmaps
- What makes a roadmap
- How to gather inputs to make a roadmap
- Linking the vision & strategy to the roadmap
- the importance of themes
- Making your roadmap richer
- Prioritization
- Getting Buy-in (two chapters)
- Maintaining your roadmap
- Relaunching roadmaps in your organization
- Every chapter is independent of the other and is followed by a summary.
Read the full review at my blog
January 2, 2022
What is a product roadmap? This is a question that many experienced professionals would say that they have an answer. However, not many fully understand the real value of a product roadmap. This book does a great job at clarifying some misconceptions about what it really means and how to use it to leverage your organization. It goes through some fundamentals of product management and in each chapter it introduces a technique you can apply to create a meaningful product roadmap. By the end of book, you will have an understanding that a product roadmap is not a list of features spread over a timeline, but rather a strategic communication tool which brings alignment with the company strategy and prioritizes the problems you will be working on by the customer needs.
January 20, 2020
Very useful overview but could have gone into more real world examples rather than speculation.... also not very clear on how best to operationalize
October 4, 2019
Your average PM deals with enormous amounts of data on any average day. Putting all that together into a roadmap is as much an art as it is a skill. If you go and ask, people will say it's fine, who doesn't know how to do a roadmap after all? However, it's amazing how many of us screw it up.
And so, Product Roadmaps Relaunched couldn't have come at a better time in my life. Not that it happened by chance, as I search for these types of books all the time. Anyway, what did I want to say?
Oh yeah, it's brilliant!
It's got it all: reasons why you should do such and such, ways to do it, suggestions for improving, a framework for getting things done plus little tips and tricks everywhere.
And the funny thing is, if you go through all of what's described in the book, you basically end up with a business plan and tons of info to guide you from that point on. I'm guessing not many people see value in it that way but for me this is more than just a roadmap book. It's a business plan book. It's a pitch book. It's having the man with the plan right beside you whenever you need him. I liked it so much I went through it three times in a row and took notes before putting it down.
I'm guessing the trainings they offer are pretty good too, though a bit on the expensive side. I wouldn't recommend taking them individually unless you buy the pack for stakeholder alignment workshops or something that brings similar value.
And so, Product Roadmaps Relaunched couldn't have come at a better time in my life. Not that it happened by chance, as I search for these types of books all the time. Anyway, what did I want to say?
Oh yeah, it's brilliant!
It's got it all: reasons why you should do such and such, ways to do it, suggestions for improving, a framework for getting things done plus little tips and tricks everywhere.
And the funny thing is, if you go through all of what's described in the book, you basically end up with a business plan and tons of info to guide you from that point on. I'm guessing not many people see value in it that way but for me this is more than just a roadmap book. It's a business plan book. It's a pitch book. It's having the man with the plan right beside you whenever you need him. I liked it so much I went through it three times in a row and took notes before putting it down.
I'm guessing the trainings they offer are pretty good too, though a bit on the expensive side. I wouldn't recommend taking them individually unless you buy the pack for stakeholder alignment workshops or something that brings similar value.
August 10, 2019
This book came at just the right time for me. I was working on a project at work related to crafting a roadmap for our company's product and started poking around for industry best-practices about roadmapping in general. That is when this book turned up.
It follows the strong O'Reilly tradition of software-oriented textbook-like information that tends to be on the cutting edge of the industry.
The most valuable takeaway from the book was the instruction to differentiate between “features” and “user needs” (themes). This is in line with the problem-space/solution-space concepts that are prevalent in other product management literature. The insight surrounding this distinction was very valuable in achieving a breakthrough in how to craft my product roadmap and how to communicate effectively with the organization. The additional benefit of composing things in a needs-based paradigm rather than a features- or solutions-based paradigm is that it becomes a communication interface for the organization, and becomes relevant to sales and marketing, and executives, not just engineering.
I continue to use this book as a reference and is quickly becoming the gold standard for the work that I'm undertaking in my current role.
It follows the strong O'Reilly tradition of software-oriented textbook-like information that tends to be on the cutting edge of the industry.
The most valuable takeaway from the book was the instruction to differentiate between “features” and “user needs” (themes). This is in line with the problem-space/solution-space concepts that are prevalent in other product management literature. The insight surrounding this distinction was very valuable in achieving a breakthrough in how to craft my product roadmap and how to communicate effectively with the organization. The additional benefit of composing things in a needs-based paradigm rather than a features- or solutions-based paradigm is that it becomes a communication interface for the organization, and becomes relevant to sales and marketing, and executives, not just engineering.
I continue to use this book as a reference and is quickly becoming the gold standard for the work that I'm undertaking in my current role.
January 23, 2022
A must read for product managers, managers, and tech leads.
I've worked with various companies and have seens a lot of the recommendations of this book in practice. The company I work at has a very clear set of company wide themes that trickles down to every team to guide them in building their OKRs. The company also makes sure that every person in the company understands these themes and the broader vision. For me I know these practices work when done right and it was nice to see this book formalize these concepts, give recommendations and explain why things like company themes, OKRs, roadmap strategy and user stories are effective.
The book did a good job walking the reader through a full product roadmap relaunch. From the roadmap primary and secondary components, all the the way to actually building the roadmap, aligning with company vision and themes, getting buy-in on objectives, and communicating the roadmap goals and the continous re-iterations. The examples provided in the book on well known companies is a nice suppliment to enhance understanding and land the key points of every chapter.
I've worked with various companies and have seens a lot of the recommendations of this book in practice. The company I work at has a very clear set of company wide themes that trickles down to every team to guide them in building their OKRs. The company also makes sure that every person in the company understands these themes and the broader vision. For me I know these practices work when done right and it was nice to see this book formalize these concepts, give recommendations and explain why things like company themes, OKRs, roadmap strategy and user stories are effective.
The book did a good job walking the reader through a full product roadmap relaunch. From the roadmap primary and secondary components, all the the way to actually building the roadmap, aligning with company vision and themes, getting buy-in on objectives, and communicating the roadmap goals and the continous re-iterations. The examples provided in the book on well known companies is a nice suppliment to enhance understanding and land the key points of every chapter.
February 17, 2020
If you are a seasoned Product Manager or an entrepreneur and if you are looking to streamline your Product Org's process, this is the book to read. I read similar books that preach different approaches to follow in setting up processes. Let me assure you, this book is different. Let me also warn you that this book is very academic. If you are not a reader who can breath academic books, you may not enjoy reading it. It teaches fundamentals of product right from the definitions of each term you live in the product world before it comes to the subject. The level of fundamental details helps Product Management rookies. The book is also kept crisp without dragging the subject with too many examples. I tried reading on the audible version but I had to get to the hard copy because there are many pictures and diagrams that depict roadmapping tools to put how different people / orgs do it differently. If your title is already a Product Manager and you are trying to improve your craft, I totally recommend this book.
September 7, 2025
C. Todd’s Roadmap Relaunch delivers a clear and structured approach to building outcome-driven product roadmaps. The early chapters are especially strong, cutting through noise and showing how to focus on real business and customer impact.
Where it falls short is in its examples and final chapters. The repeated “hose company” example seems intended to be universally relatable, but in my view it misses the mark and makes the material harder to connect with. And while the last two chapters raise important themes, like aligning stakeholders, communicating changes across teams, and scaling a relaunch across the organization, they remain overly narrative and lack the depth needed to help leaders put these ideas into practice. If the goal is to guide not only building but also relaunching a roadmap across an organization, those chapters should go deeper into the practical how-to, rather than skimming the surface.
Overall, the book succeeds in clarifying outcome-driven roadmapping, but to truly empower product leaders, its treatment of organizational rollout needs more substance.
Where it falls short is in its examples and final chapters. The repeated “hose company” example seems intended to be universally relatable, but in my view it misses the mark and makes the material harder to connect with. And while the last two chapters raise important themes, like aligning stakeholders, communicating changes across teams, and scaling a relaunch across the organization, they remain overly narrative and lack the depth needed to help leaders put these ideas into practice. If the goal is to guide not only building but also relaunching a roadmap across an organization, those chapters should go deeper into the practical how-to, rather than skimming the surface.
Overall, the book succeeds in clarifying outcome-driven roadmapping, but to truly empower product leaders, its treatment of organizational rollout needs more substance.
July 3, 2021
A "must" after Inspired (Marty Cagan).
This book has an amazing toolkit to become a better Product Manager. Is the Roadmap a PowerPoint presentation to show the stakeholders the features and the release dates? Definitely not. So, What is it? It is a compelling document to show the strategy and discuss priorities.
To craft this great tool, you need to capture the right insights, discuss with each stakeholder, prioritize it and finally share it with all the relevant stakeholders previous to the execution phase. How to do that efficiently? Read the book!
This book has an amazing toolkit to become a better Product Manager. Is the Roadmap a PowerPoint presentation to show the stakeholders the features and the release dates? Definitely not. So, What is it? It is a compelling document to show the strategy and discuss priorities.
To craft this great tool, you need to capture the right insights, discuss with each stakeholder, prioritize it and finally share it with all the relevant stakeholders previous to the execution phase. How to do that efficiently? Read the book!
August 18, 2023
So, you think you know roadmaps???
I read this book because Jared Spool calls this book the "Bible for roadmaps". I think the greatest thing I learned from this book is that roadmaps or not release plans. They are strategic communication tools for product vision. There is plenty of PM goodness in here like prioritizing, getting good engineer estimates, software tools, exposing your roadmap, or hiding it, keeping quality, and pivoting. I'd say the great road mapping vision content was in the beginning of the book, and the rest was almost more of an appendix full of nitty-gritty resources.
I read this book because Jared Spool calls this book the "Bible for roadmaps". I think the greatest thing I learned from this book is that roadmaps or not release plans. They are strategic communication tools for product vision. There is plenty of PM goodness in here like prioritizing, getting good engineer estimates, software tools, exposing your roadmap, or hiding it, keeping quality, and pivoting. I'd say the great road mapping vision content was in the beginning of the book, and the rest was almost more of an appendix full of nitty-gritty resources.
December 25, 2024
You’re telling me it’s been a whole 12 days since I finished a book? And this one was audiobooked? The end of year self sabotage is real 😩
tbh I’ve been in a reading slump and my goal to watch more shows/movies is not encouraging my reading progress, so it’s fine 🙃
Anyways, the audiobook was mostly fine but I found myself focusing more on the hours left instead of the actual content. I should’ve DNF’d since I spaced out a lot, but I “accidentally” peeked at my book count this year and created an arbitrary goal of reading 104 books (avg 2 per week) because why not
tbh I’ve been in a reading slump and my goal to watch more shows/movies is not encouraging my reading progress, so it’s fine 🙃
Anyways, the audiobook was mostly fine but I found myself focusing more on the hours left instead of the actual content. I should’ve DNF’d since I spaced out a lot, but I “accidentally” peeked at my book count this year and created an arbitrary goal of reading 104 books (avg 2 per week) because why not
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 30, 2024
In 2024, I read a LOT of productivity books and this is by FAR the worst one. It's made me understand how AI will take over creative jobs and I'm not upset of this quality of author being pushed aside. If you're trying to improve yourself, this ain't it. ChatGPT will at least be able to take you on exercises rather than give you a choose your own adventure experience through this book.
Also, if you're listening to this on Audiobook, stop. It's meant for physical, I assume. Skip the first 30minutes. They're all attributions that showcase the LACK of product understanding of an audiobook.
Also, if you're listening to this on Audiobook, stop. It's meant for physical, I assume. Skip the first 30minutes. They're all attributions that showcase the LACK of product understanding of an audiobook.
March 1, 2021
Great 'playbook' for relaunching Roadmaps. Provides a very accessible description of how to think about and how to do roadmaps. Explains lots of common 'gotta' where roadmapping frequently fails. Good level of abstraction - its not overly prescriptive yet practical.
There is no one perfect way to do roadmaps, and this books doesn't try to provide it. But there are lots of generally good rules - and the books excels at it
There is no one perfect way to do roadmaps, and this books doesn't try to provide it. But there are lots of generally good rules - and the books excels at it
April 6, 2022
I found a few helpful insights and learnings, but from my point of view - this could have been a blog post instead of a book. People that work in companies where product teams are not working independently, that need to fight for the right things to build and the most harmful problems to solve - will benefit the most from this book. There is not much to give in this book for people that work in companies with empowered product teams.
March 23, 2019
“A product roadmap describes how you intend to achieve your product vision. It focuses on the value you propose to deliver to your customer and your organization in order to rally support and coordinate effort among stakeholders.”
Fantastic product strategy overview. Recommend to anyone that makes decisions about products (or that suffers through the decisions of others)
Fantastic product strategy overview. Recommend to anyone that makes decisions about products (or that suffers through the decisions of others)
August 31, 2019
Great resource for roadmapping
If you don't have a functional roadmapping process, or if you know your roadmapping could be better, this book has many thoughts on how to get there.
It's a will written book that ramps up progressively through the steps you can take to have a roadmap that works for you.
If you don't have a functional roadmapping process, or if you know your roadmapping could be better, this book has many thoughts on how to get there.
It's a will written book that ramps up progressively through the steps you can take to have a roadmap that works for you.
January 19, 2020
It's always good to have a framework when taking on these types of things. This book offers a simple framework and guidance for building your own product roadmap. The do's and don'ts. What a roadmap is, and what it isn't (definitely not a project plan). Very practical advice and examples to help you build and maintain your own product roadmap.
June 13, 2020
One of the best Product books I've ever read. Confirmed the broad strokes of how I make roadmaps now, but if I had read this book earlier, it would have saved me years of trial and error and hard lessons learned. And the book still has lots of tips and small points that are helping me refine my roadmap now.
November 16, 2020
The best book I have come across on how to create roadmaps and communicate them with different stakeholders.
Generally gives a good overview of how to keep the roadmap outcomes-focused and how to keep everyone aligned and happy. But would have loved less fluff and more specifics.
(Also, needed another round of proofreading before publishing, but that's a common problem for books like this.)
Generally gives a good overview of how to keep the roadmap outcomes-focused and how to keep everyone aligned and happy. But would have loved less fluff and more specifics.
(Also, needed another round of proofreading before publishing, but that's a common problem for books like this.)
February 16, 2021
This is of the deep in a single practice type of books.
It's ok, honestly I think you could work a lot of this out if you have read any more general book.
It's a good enough deep dive into the product roadmap, well written and with examples and anecdotes. It's just there isn't that much to say about product roadmaps.
Maybe a useful reference to fall back on if you get stuck?
It's ok, honestly I think you could work a lot of this out if you have read any more general book.
It's a good enough deep dive into the product roadmap, well written and with examples and anecdotes. It's just there isn't that much to say about product roadmaps.
Maybe a useful reference to fall back on if you get stuck?
March 27, 2021
As a Product Manager myself, I found this book to be a great coffee table resource to go back to when contemplating roadmaps. I wasn't much a fan of the examples/case studies used in this book but the tips and considerations were fantastic and I really liked the format. Would recommend to other Product Folk.
November 20, 2021
Adresserer problemer med planlegging under usikkerhet som jeg kjente meg godt igjen i. Jeg ble overrasket over hvor effektivt roadmap kan brukes for at et team kan samarbeide om å løse kunders problem. De er tydelige på hvordan roadmaps kan brukes for å forstå kunden bedre, jobbe samlet, og unngå å love løsninger som viser seg ikke å være nyttig for å løse kundens problem.
December 19, 2021
The book to read on the Process of Road Mapping
Authors are the recognised leaders in this field and the clarity of the difference between the strategic role of the road map compared to project and release plans sets the tone for this book. Audible is great and I have the book on Kindle and print. If you need to lead your team to build road maps read this! Excellent.
Authors are the recognised leaders in this field and the clarity of the difference between the strategic role of the road map compared to project and release plans sets the tone for this book. Audible is great and I have the book on Kindle and print. If you need to lead your team to build road maps read this! Excellent.
April 12, 2022
Of all the road mapping books out there, this one is worth reading because it balances the use of case studies, humour, and innovative processes that you are unlikely to have tried before.
It is written at an approachable level that anyone from would-be product managers to the experienced head of product would gain benefit.
It is written at an approachable level that anyone from would-be product managers to the experienced head of product would gain benefit.
March 28, 2023
I would rate this book at 3.5. It is an easy and clean read. It's gathers multiple methods and terms, and explains them in a simple manner: from user role / types / personas, from product mission / vision / goals, from job and user stories, to prioritization frameworks. Still, it lacks more examples and talks a lot about generalities and same old / same old.
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