9 Product Roadmap Presentation Mistakes to Avoid
9 Mistakes You Should Avoid in Your Product Roadmap Presentations
Let’s say you are on a road trip and plan to reach your destination on time, using minimum fuel and taking the shortest route possible. A roadmap is what will help you tick all those boxes.
A product roadmap follows a similar trajectory. It is a guide that tells stakeholders where you are going and why you are moving in that direction.
A product roadmap is a strategic organic document that elaborates plans vital for the success of the product. It doesn’t just highlight features but includes everything from the vision and direction of the product over time to the mission and execution of the product strategy.
What is a Product Roadmap Presentation?
The product roadmap presentation is a visual representation of the strategic document that aims to:
steer all the key people in the same strategic direction (shared goals and plans).
build a common understanding regarding the strategy and course of direction for the product.
build enthusiasm for the product, keeping it aligned with all the important KPIs.
sum up your entire vision for the product and give everyone from developers, marketers, and sales team to testers a go-forward plan.
The goals can only be achieved if the presentation is prepared in sync with necessary details, avoiding the common pitfalls.
The article shares information about the common roadmap presentation mistakes you need to avoid to serve your intended purpose.
Avoid These 7 Product Roadmap Presentation Mistakes
Not Updating When Needed
The roadmap serves as a source of direction that can be referred to at any point in time to stay on track. But this purpose can only be fulfilled if the document is regularly updated as time passes by.
You might have created the perfect presentation, but there are a lot of factors, like changes in market demand, consumer preferences, company goals, etc., that need to be taken into the equation.
It is, therefore, important to review the document periodically and modify it according to these changes.
Accessibility
A lot of product managers take the help of PowerPoint to create their roadmap presentations. As it needs to be circulated among multiple teams and stakeholders across various locations, maintaining updated local versions becomes a task.
It can also bring a lot of trouble to keep all the information updated everywhere at the right time. However, there are a lot of tools in the market that solve this purpose by keeping the document updated for everyone, with needed authorization access restrictions.
Too Detail-Oriented
The presentation is your high-level visionary guide regarding the course you plan to take with the product. The vast picture of strategy and direction can’t get lost by spending too much time on details.
The minute excursions will harm your narrative flow, and you might get sidetracked by a skeptical audience debating over the nuances of little features. The main purpose is to secure overall approval and convey general aspects and priorities of the product.
Depending on the audience, you can stick to the overall theme and projected time horizons that allow you flexibility and comfortable realignment.
Overly Technical
Your presentation is not a demo or training module but rather a sales pitch that should include aspects like goals, differentiation, benefits, etc.,
Presentations become unsuccessful and boring when they involve too many technicalities that could be incorporated into training sessions for people and need not be a part of the speech.
A Single Roadmap for All
The roadmap presentation is a guide to help people finish their targets based on factors like product strategy, vision, and market research.
Another common mistake product managers make is to go for a single roadmap with a prioritized list of features.
You have multiple stakeholders like C-suite executives, marketing and sales team, engineers and testers, end-users, etc., who refer from the document. Therefore, it is wise to go for varied roadmaps depending on the users.
For instance, a roadmap related to features and release dates is suitable for testers and sales and marketing people and not for executives who will need a strategic roadmap that shares high-level initiatives and their outcomes/goals.
Not Taking into Account the Resource Availability
The roadmap presentation isn’t just a plain document. For everything that’s there on the roadmap – and if you also include stipulated deadlines – you need to ensure that you have the required resources, like budget, personnel, etc., to complete the needed work.
However, product managers often make the mistake of creating the roadmap presentation without taking into account things like the company’s resources or prior commitments of the development team, etc.
They create their wish list of strategic items and share it with developers to know if they have the capacity to fulfill the project’s needs in time. It can lead to serious operational issues and wastage of time (all the time invested prioritizing items for the roadmap without checking in with the development team regarding capacity) as teams have not collaborated earlier regarding the crucial information.
Not Reading the Room
One mistake the presenters make is they create the presentation, keeping managers and marketers in mind. They fail to realize that customers, end-users, and other people are also important parts of the stakeholders who will evaluate the document and make decisions based on their knowledge and experience.
Everyone needs to understand how the product will benefit them in what ways.
Unrealistic Expectations
Product requirements are often taken in from varying sources like stakeholders, customers, markets, competitors, etc. Sometimes, the important step of consulting cross-functional teams is missed before prioritizing features and ideas on the roadmap presentation. It might lead you to commit to unrealistic release dates and deadlines.
The presentation should be created with realistic features and benefits after fully researching the viability of the product and market demands.
Not meeting the deadlines or goals might make the product seem like a failure.
Missing Out on Marking the Assumptions and Constraints
Roadmap presentation generally marks the high-level goals and general themes regarding the product. At the time when you are creating the document, you might not have all the information like feature scoping.
There could be other dependencies, like awaiting more information from a vendor or having tentative release dates.
These assumptions and constraints need to be explicitly showcased in the presentation with asterisk marks to make everyone aware of any deadline delays or item descoping.
To Sum It Up
Product roadmap presentation is one of the most important tasks for a product manager who wants to up-speed everyone involved with the product cycle.
However, if not properly presented, it can lead to a failure, impacting the bottom line. So, be mindful of involving all the key stakeholders, take inputs from varying sources, and ensure you do not commit the mistakes mentioned above while creating the presentation.
