How to Create a Product
Roadmap That Inspires: A
Template for Product Leaders
How to Use This Template
A product roadmap is more than a laundry list
of initiatives for a product team to work on. It’s
an opportunity for product leaders to create
alignment with stakeholders and motivate
employees across departments.
This template is structured in a way that will
help you develop a product roadmap that tells a
cohesive, compelling story that clearly shows the
why (why are we working on these objectives?)
and how (how will we achieve these objectives?)
behind the actions your team takes.
1
Section one covers documenting
annual objectives and the tactics to
accomplish them
2
Section two covers how to bring
your roadmap to life by focusing on
the end result
The template is broken up into two sections:
How to Create a Product Roadmap That Inspires
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From changes in the market to pivoting a product,
you’re in a unique position to inspire your entire
company and rally them around accomplishing
critical business objectives.
Paint a Picture and
Set the Tone
When you’re putting your product roadmap
together, it needs to follow a story arch. This
helps paint a specific picture in the mind of
whoever is consuming it.
Just like any good story, your roadmap should
have a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning
is equivalent to your company’s mission – it
sets the tone. The middle is your key objectives
and tactics. Finally, the end is what the entire
company can expect if all objectives are
accomplished.
In order to create a roadmap that inspires and
motivates employees, you have to connect the
dots for them. A story arch makes this easy.
How to Create a Product Roadmap That Inspires
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At Company X, our mission is to make
financial freedom attainable by improving
people’s financial literacy.
Company Mission
Example:
Pro tip: Leading off with your company’s
mission, which should be aspirational,
will instantly remind employees what
their North Star is as a team.
How to Create a Product Roadmap That Inspires
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Company Mission
How to Create a Product Roadmap That Inspires
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With your company’s mission in mind, list your
product team’s key objectives for the year.
Whether you’re giving a presentation or an
employee is reading your roadmap in PDF format,
this helps employees clearly see the link between
objectives and the overall company mission.
List Key Objectives
There are a number of ways you can come up
with company-level objectives. The rule of thumb
is to keep them realistic, relevant to the company
mission, and challenging enough to push your
team.
Chances are there are a lot of objectives your
team could tackle in a given year. However,
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Focus your team’s
energy on a handful of objectives that would
move the needle in your business if they were
accomplished.
How to Create a Product Roadmap That Inspires
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objective one:
Launch product redesign (v2.1.1) with new
functionality and UI
2020 Product
Objective
Examples
objective two:
Launch v2.0 of API
objective three:
Make backend infrastructure upgrades to prepare
for user growth
How to Create a Product Roadmap That Inspires
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2020 Company Objectives
objective one:
objective two:
objective three:
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After listing your key objectives for the year, the
next step is to outline the tactics your team will
use to meet these deliverables.
For each objective, whether it’s more than or less
than three, jot down the specific tactics your team
will use in a 6 and 12-month timeframe.
Document Tactics
Timeframes can be tricky. You want to strike a
balance between too broad and too specific.
If your timeframe is too broad then you risk
causing confusion as to when new features
and enhancements would ship. But if you’re too
specific you risk eroding trust if an objective can’t
be accomplished.
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Example: Launch product redesign (v2.1.1)
with new functionality and UI
next six months
next twelve months
tactic one: Hire key engineering/designer talent
tactic one: Run extensive testing of core
product functionality
tactic two: Infrastructure/code audit
tactic two: User testing with current customers
and external influencers to collect feedbacky
tactic three: Develop design mockups/wireframes
tactic three: Develop GTM plan and customer
communications
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Objective One
next six months
next twelve months
tactic one:
tactic one:
tactic two:
tactic two:
tactic three:
tactic three:
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Objective Two
next six months
next twelve months
tactic one:
tactic one:
tactic two:
tactic two:
tactic three:
tactic three:
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Objective Three
next six months
next twelve months
tactic one:
tactic one:
tactic two:
tactic two:
tactic three:
tactic three:
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Now that you have your key objectives and
tactics documented, the next step is to bring your
roadmap to life by showing the end result. Think
of this as a before and after moment.
Bringing Your
Roadmap to Life
As you develop this section of your roadmap,
focus on showing what would happen if the
objectives you outlined in section one became a
reality.
The point of showing the end result before it
happens is to give employees a North Star. After
all, employees with purpose are more productive.
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Example: Launch product redesign (v2.1.1)
with new functionality and UI
Before (product shot)
After (product shot)
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Example: Make backend infrastructure
upgrades to prepare for user growth
V2.0 of our API will allow us to pull in content from media
V2.0 of our API will allow customers to push data to
sites that cover finance, such as:
personal finance tracking apps, such as:
• Nerd Wallet
• Mint.com
• Yahoo Finance
• Personal Capital
• Seeking Alpha
• PocketGuard
• Bloomberg
• Clarity Money
V2.0 will create new partnership opportunities and
• YNAB
launch with 3 net-new partnerships:
• Wealthfront
• Ally Bank
• Coinbase
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Final Thoughts
When you combine your company’s mission, relevant objectives and tactics, and show the
end before it happens, you create a natural story arch for your product roadmap.
A roadmap with a story woven into it helps employees see the larger picture and all the
steps in between that are necessary to get there.
As a product leader, if you can inspire and motivate employees with a simple roadmap, you
can create a team that marches to the same drumbeat and achieves critical objectives.
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