We’ve all used it, the trusty phrase that buys us time and sets boundaries: “That’s not on the roadmap!”
In this guide, we’ll look at what a product roadmap really is, how to create one in a collaborative way, why they sometimes flop, and how to set yours up for success.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- What is a product roadmap?
- Tools and formats for your roadmap
- Linking outcomes and metrics to your product roadmap
- Understanding vision, strategy, roadmap, plan, and backlog
- How to facilitate a collaborative roadmap session
- Common reasons roadmaps fail
- What to do next with your roadmap
So, what is a product roadmap?
At its heart, a roadmap is a visual, strategic guide. It captures your direction and vision, aligning teams, stakeholders, and customers around where you’re heading and why.
A roadmap is your north star.
It’s the shared understanding and single source of truth that keeps everyone travelling in the same direction. Communication and alignment is key.
But the best roadmaps aren’t written in isolation. They’re co-created with real users in mind, building a product or service shaped around their needs.
While typically associated with products, we’ve also found roadmaps incredibly useful for planning team development, leadership journeys, and personal growth.
They help you visualise progress, set strategic goals, and stay aligned as you evolve.
Roadmapping tools and formats
With so many tools and templates out there, it’s easy to get stuck trying to find “the perfect one” instead of just starting.
If your team is new to roadmapping, keep it simple. Ideally, as a bare minimum, your roadmap should clearly outline the outcomes you want to achieve and the metrics you’ll use to track success.
We’re big fans of the Now / Next / Later format invented by Janna Bastow. It’s straightforward, flexible, and easy to grasp. This format helps you focus on immediate priorities, near-term plans, and future opportunities without overwhelming people with unnecessary detail.
This Now / Next / Later format helps to keep teams aligned whilst avoiding the common problem of people interpreting items far into the future as commitments. It also allows for flexibility as priorities evolve.
When we run product roadmap workshop sessions, we always encourage teams to be bold enough to remove anything that no longer adds value. Including a dedicated “delete” or “bin” column in your roadmap can act as a helpful nudge to reassess and declutter your plans regularly.
There’s no need to splash out on fancy tools. In fact, simplicity often works best. Tools like Miro, Powerpoint or even using a flip chart can easily hold a roadmap that is simple and easy to keep up to date. The real goal is to keep your roadmap simple, accessible and meaningful for everyone involved.
Below, you’ll find a sample roadmap using the classic Now / Next / Later layout. It’s based on a fictional video streaming platform and shows, for each stage, the intended outcomes, core features, and, of course, metrics and your measurable goals.
Focus on outcomes and metrics
A roadmap shouldn’t be a dumping ground for feature lists. It should answer the question of how you plan to create value.
How to make your product roadmap outcome-driven and measurable
Begin with the purpose
Before diving into features or deliverables, take a step back and ask: What is the real problem we’re solving?
The outcomes you define should represent meaningful change, things like improved customer experience, lower churn, or stronger engagement. A well-framed outcome answers: How will things be better once we’ve succeeded?
Put the customer front and centre
True outcomes aren’t just a reflection of what your team delivers, they represent the impact on your customers. Think in terms of customer behaviours or shifts in user experience, such as higher adoption rates or enhanced usability, rather than internal milestones.
What outcomes are NOT
Teams often confuse tasks or activities with outcomes. Here are a few examples of what shouldn’t appear in the outcome column:
- Procurement or vendor onboarding steps
- Research phases or investigations
- Getting approvals or sign-offs
- Budget submissions
- Technical tasks or sprint items
- Specific feature releases
If your roadmap includes any of the above, ask: What will be different once this is done? That question often leads to a clearer, more outcome-aligned statement.
Clarify your metrics
Once you’ve shaped your outcomes, define how your team will measure progress. Your metrics should provide a clear signal of success and help validate whether the outcome is being achieved.
- Leading indicators tell you early if you’re on the right track (e.g. increase in daily active users).
- Lagging indicators confirm the impact over time (e.g., improved customer retention).
Pro Tip: Avoid vanity metrics. Numbers that sound good but lack substance. For example, page views or total downloads may look impressive, but don’t necessarily reflect user value. Choose metrics that genuinely align with the customer outcomes you want to drive.
By shifting your roadmap from a list of deliverables to a story about value, you’re not just deciding what to build, you are focusing on why it matters. This approach leads to clearer priorities, better decisions, and stronger alignment across teams.
What is the difference between the vision, strategy, roadmap, plan, and backlog?
These terms often get muddled up. The visual shown below by Roman Pichler shows the relationship between these elements. If you’re diving straight into backlog creation without first pausing to explore your vision and strategic direction, consider hitting the brakes. Taking time to align on the broader purpose upfront can lead to sharper, more thoughtful product choices.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
Vision
Your big, inspiring, long-term goal, captured in one or two punchy sentences. Starting with the vision can help to keep everyone aligned and traveling in the same direction.
Strategy
The overarching approach you’ll take to achieve your vision.
Roadmap
A high-level view translating strategy into outcomes over the next 12+ months. Your roadmap focuses on the outcomes and can be used as a communication tool to align your team and stakeholders.
Plan
A task-focused breakdown with dates and deliverables. Usually, the plan will go into detail about who is doing what, along with dependencies and detailed information.
Backlog
The tactical, ordered, and evolving list of all the work needed to deliver outcomes. This can include user stories, features, bugs, tasks, investigations, and more.
All of these artefacts are useful and serve their own purpose, but if you jump straight into writing backlog items without a roadmap, you will risk ending up busy, but heading in the wrong direction
Facilitating a collaborative roadmap session
If you try to build a roadmap by yourself, expect trouble: no buy-in, unrealistic timelines, roadmap on a Gantt chart, expecting the technically impossible and poor alignment are all signs that your roadmap is not what it should be
Instead, try the following:
- Talk to customers first. Understand their needs and problems.
- Involve the team who will actually be doing the work, stakeholders, subject matter experts, and leaders.
- List potential outcomes, then rank them based on value, effort, risk, and dependencies.
- Use a Now / Next / Later to help prioritise and keep focus.
Techniques like User Story Mapping can also help you visualise customer journeys and prioritise better.
Share drafts early, get feedback, refine together, align with the company’s strategy, and lastly, delete what is not relevant.
Collaboration leads to stronger roadmaps, stronger products, and stronger team culture.
A roadmap shouldn’t be treated as a fixed plan. The most useful roadmaps are the ones that stay flexible. As you learn more, they grow and change, just like your product. Think of your roadmap as a guide, not a rulebook. The more it adapts based on learning, the more powerful it becomes.
Why product roadmaps fall apart
Even the most well-intentioned roadmaps can go off track. Below are some of the most frequent reasons they don’t deliver the impact teams hope for:
No regular check-ins
A roadmap that’s never revisited quickly becomes outdated. Without a dedicated review scheduled and carried out, teams drift away from the original intent, unaware of shifts in priorities or external changes. Regularly revisiting your roadmap keeps it aligned with real-world progress and evolving market conditions.
Losing sight of the vision
If the long-term goal isn’t clear, how will anyone know where they’re headed? Without a shared vision, decisions become fragmented. As the saying by Yogi Berra goes, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up somewhere else!”
Start by defining where you are trying to go. This is your vision.
Inflexibility in the face of change
Great roadmaps aren’t rigid, they are responsive. As you learn what resonates with users and customers (and what doesn’t), your direction may shift. Be it an emerging technology, customer feedback, or competitive pressure, your roadmap should flex and evolve as needed. Think of it as a live, adaptive guide and not a fixed script.
Building in a vacuum
Creating a roadmap behind closed doors, without input from teams, customers, or stakeholders, is a missed opportunity. Collaboration helps you spot risks early, improve feasibility, and foster stronger buy-in. It’s much easier to deliver value when everyone’s aligned from the start.
Too much, too soon
Trying to cram every idea, feature, and wish list item into one roadmap often backfires. It turns into a cluttered mess instead of a strategic guide. A good roadmap should be high-level, digestible, and focused on what really matters.
Forgetting the customer
When customer feedback isn’t part of roadmap conversations, the end result risks missing the mark. Building based on assumptions rather than validated needs can lead to wasted effort. Regularly bringing in customer insights ensures your roadmap reflects the real problems you’re trying to solve.
Not saying “no” enough
It’s tempting to keep everything “just in case,” but a bloated roadmap slows you down. Being brave enough to cut what no longer fits is a powerful act of focus. Don’t be afraid to hit delete, clearing space is how you make room for what truly matters.
Silence isn’t a strategy
A roadmap that no one sees is just a private to-do list. Share it, make it visible, talk about it, and involve your teams. When people feel part of the journey, they are far more likely to help shape and support the outcome.
A roadmap isn’t a one-and-done artefact. It’s living, shaped by learning, built on collaboration, and guided by purpose. Keep it visible, flexible, and focused, and your roadmap will guide you through uncertainty with clarity.
A great roadmap is reviewed often, evolves with learning, and keeps the team steering toward value.
What to do after creating your product roadmap
So, your product roadmap is ready. Now what?
Don’t become inactive
One of the most common pitfalls is allowing the roadmap to become inactive. Do not let it sit untouched in a shared drive or lost somewhere in the cloud. A roadmap only adds value if it is actively used and regularly reviewed.
Treat your roadmap as a dynamic tool, not a one-time artefact
Schedule consistent review sessions with your team and stakeholders to track progress, reflect on learning, and adapt to changing circumstances. The focus should always remain on the outcomes you are aiming to achieve, rather than just ticking off completed features.
Communicate
Keep everyone involved by communicating regularly. Share updates, explain changes openly, and take time to acknowledge milestones along the way. When teams feel informed and involved, they are more likely to stay motivated and aligned with the bigger picture.
Be open to change
As your team gathers more insights, whether from customers, data, or market trends, do not be afraid to revisit the roadmap. Reassessing priorities and removing irrelevant items is not only healthy but necessary.
If you are preparing to co-create your product roadmap, remember that progress begins with simply taking the first step.
You do not need to aim for perfection. You just need to start. Start small, learn fast, and refine along the way.
Vinnie Gill is co-chair of the Agile Product Management Initiative, which you can learn more about here.
You can learn more about Vinnie and Suzanne here: https://outcomeoveroutput.com/
