 Hi everyone, thanks for joining today for today's webinar on Crafting product strategy and roadmap for a product Just a quick introduction for about myself. I'm sorry Sharma. I'm a senior product manager currently at Amazon Before that I've held product lead roles at Sarah monkey eBay and before that, you know, I was into more of a business consulting I've done my MBA from boot skill of business in Chicago Yeah, and currently I live in Toronto, Canada Okay, with that, let's just jump right in Okay, so here's what our agenda looks like for today. So we're gonna talk about, you know, what is product vision? Charity, you know, how do you think about product roadmaps? You know, what are the different kinds of roadmaps that you know, you can make and you know, what are some of the common pitfalls to avoid? You know in product roadmaps Okay, so with that, let's just jump right in um, I'm gonna just, you know, uh Have you keep this picture in mind as we progress through this webinar? Uh, like vision, uh, when you think about for products is at the right top you can think of this like a pyramid Uh strategy is the kind of like the the second step and then finally, you know, once you have defined your vision and strategy And then, you know, you finally, you know, you come up with a product roadmap, right? Just keep this picture in mind and you know, as we are Through this thing and then we'll see how, you know, we end up filling this and you know, how, you know, we can get some tangible um, you know Steps in each of these kind of vision strategy in roadmap Okay, uh, let's go right in Okay, so what's a product vision and you know, like why? It's kind of like important, right? so As you know, like, you know, like it's very important that, you know, you have a product vision Which is like an aspirational state of the product, right that you want to achieve in the future for your users um Ideally your product vision should be between uh, two to four years Because and then the reason being that if you keep it like too short, um, you know, it's it's you know It's not likely that you're gonna achieve that, right? I mean and if you keep it like too broad like more than Five to seven years and it becomes like a too big of a time frame for that So, you know, like it's a sweet spot is about two to four years That's what you should keep your vision for and and then, you know As you come up with your vision and you progress towards, you know, your your product vision You know, you can see like, you know, whether you're reaching that vision or not, right? um It's very important to keep in mind a few of the things, uh, you know, the characteristics that I mentioned here for a good product vision, right? it's very, uh So first things, um, you know for the product vision, uh, it should be inspiring, right? It should inspire your team members just take orders alike so that, you know, you're You're aligned towards making a product a success, right? If there is like the product vision is not inspiring Um, you know, it's hard for teams to kind of like, you know, collaborate and align towards that product vision, right? Second thing, it should be ambitious. You know, you should have It should not be something, you know, which you can achieve immediately within six six months or so Right, so it should be like a big, hairy and audacious goal, right that you want to achieve for that product Um, second, it should not only be like, you know, your product manager or product leader your vision, right? It should be a shared vision that it can unite people, right? It's very important for a product vision to be that, right? You don't want to have a product vision which you only understand You know, and nobody else kind of I understand what that vision is about um Next I would say it should be opinionated, right? I mean, you don't want your product vision to be general, right? I mean, you want to, you know, share a specific point of view about the product, you know, which you want, right? Your product to be in the future, right? So it definitely requires a specific point of view And last but not the least it should be user-centric because, you know, you want to focus on the benefit that you're going to provide to the users, right? That's here. It should be a part of the product vision as well, right? Um, okay, uh, let's look at You know, what is now product strategy, right? Having if that is product vision What does product strategy mean, right? And, you know, how do we go about, you know, defining its key components, right? So product strategy, you know, describes the choices that you're going to take To achieve that product vision, right? Um And I'm gonna like Pause here in a minute to just say like why it's important that after you have a product vision to have a sound product strategy um The you know, the reality of the situation is that um, you know, like any the new product launches In Bigger companies or startups elikes, you know, they have a very high rate of failing, you know It can vary anywhere from 40 to 50 percent and goes up to anywhere to 80 percent depending on the type of the industry And you know size of the company, right? So there is like very high percentage of this new product failures, which exists today, right? Um so, uh, and majority of those happen because of not having a sound product strategy in place Um Because it might be either under undercooked, you know, if we haven't figured out, you know, what's the Right, uh, like all the components for their product Before we start to you know, work on that Uh, or it could be that, you know, like we you know, just thought about you know, like the business We didn't think about the user at all, right? So it could be like variety of different reasons, but Not having a sound product strategy is is the cause for failure for most of the uh, new product launches, right? So it's very important that, you know You know, we take time to Kind of frame a good product strategy before we get started, you know on the product roadmap side of things, right? um Secondly, I would say like the product strategy should be aligned with the mission of the company and help advance that, right? Um, so what do I mean by that? Say for example, say, you know, like facebook's mission is to Bring people around the world closer together and help build communities, right? So I'm saying if I'm proposing, uh, facebook events, you know, anything that I set a vision for facebook events Should align with facebook's overall mission, which is to bring people closer together and help build communities Uh, if I propose something which is not aligned with that mission, um, You know, chances are it would be difficult to kind of justify why are we even thinking about that product? Vision of or even thinking about, you know, having a product in place like that, right? So it's very important that the, you know, like The your product vision and strategy should be aligned with, uh, you know, your company's Overall mission and help advance that Uh, okay, and I've said that, uh, now let's look at some of the key components, right? Well a good product strategy It should have a good product strategy. It should have, you know, your key value propositions You know, like what is the benefit now? You know, why why should somebody buy your product? Right Who is your customer? Uh, who are you targeting and you know, what problems are we solving? Um, how big is the market like so ideally you want your product to be in a market, you know, which has Like less competition and there's like a lot of white space area, right? So and typically, you know, you would also want the market to be big enough so you know, you can expand in the future Um Next thing would be like, you know, you need to look at your competitors Uh, just like I was mentioning in the market side, you know, you should look at like whom are you competing against Who are the existing players in this market, right? What are some things you can do which are You're better than your competitors, right? Because ultimately if you want your product to succeed You should be doing something which is different and which the customers will want to buy your product for, right? Um, so that is all good, right? I mean, but some of the things that we always miss in product, um, You know strategy, uh, and we kind of like overlook that is like how are you going to reach those customers? Like the whole go-to-market strategy for that, right? You can build the best product possible that you want, right? But if you don't have a good way of like, uh, marketing and kind of like distributing your product, you know Chances are that it's not going to be successful, right? So it's very important that you think about your go-to-market, you know at while you're defining your, you know, your product strategy Um, the last but not the least You know as you know, there should be something, you know, what when you want to do this, you know It should be aligned with your, you know, what your business goals and priorities are, right? um, if your business goal and priorities about Like improving customer NPS and you know, you're coming up with, you know, new product ideas, uh for say in a revenue growth, uh, or Or, you know, more customer acquisition, you know, all of those are like good But like if your business is totally focused on say customer NPS and improving that Chances are that if you come up with a new product idea, uh, our vision and strategy, which is aligned towards NPS Chances are that you know get buy-in for that, right? So it's very important to keep in mind that, you know, what is in it for the business like, you know You want to make sure that your product strategy is aligned with, you know, your business priorities and goals as well Okay Let's keep moving. Um Let's take a quick example. Um, this is something which I did while I was at ebay and I was doing a kind of like a envisioning a new product for one of the ebay companies at the time paypal And this was for the Indian market Um, I will not go like too much into detail, but this kind of like gives you, um Kind of like a good idea of like what we were talking about from product vision and product Strategy perspective that how that you know comes together uh, for example You know, like this product vision, right? So we paypal record would be the one stop shop for handling the subscription business in india for small all small to medium merchants who want to handle subscription payments securely and at an affordable price, right? So that's a pretty um, you know, like if you if you and if like it's paypal and it's coming up with a new product It's a pretty bold vision to have that you want it to be the one stop shop for all Small to medium merchants right who want to handle subscription payments Um, this is something which is bold, which is you know, something which is you know Kind of inspiring as well that you know, you want it to be the to go product for SMBs in india And it's also something which is can't be like immediately achieved, right? I mean this will require some work to be done before you know, you can realize that vision And it also requires a lot of you know, like this is just defining at a very high level It's also like kind of like behag that we talked about, right? It's it's like a big hairy and audacious goal, right? It requires a lot of other components So as part of that, you know When you want to define the product strategy, uh, like make no mistake that you have to you know, spend a lot of time before you can You know arrive at your target customer Or market size or your competitive research, right? You have to like You have to do a lot of user research, right? You have to do a lot of Serving of a target customers talk to them, you know figure out what is the pin point, right? And it requires a lot of work before, you know, you can start kind of like filling up This product strategy different areas, right? It might also require you to you know, uh, even partner with some kind of, uh, you know Companies that kind of help you size of the market and and so forth, right? It might also help you to you know, require you to you know, kind of figure out what you're going to market will be Is a business currently, you know set up to have that kind of good market function or not, right? Um, so, you know, this is just to kind of like give you a flavor that you know This is how things come together. Uh, when you're thinking about a new product and you know, like and once you Have done your right come on to research, you know You can start to kind of fill up all this key components that are required for you to a Propose it and then you know kind of get alignment and approval for for these kind of new products, right? um You know as I was saying in the previous slide, you know, it's when you come with a new product It's also important that you know, you you know, come up with some kind of a You know kind of a business model canvas, uh, like I show here This is just to align like, you know How how how is your product supposed to? You know work, uh, you know, not only from the problem and solution value provision But also like from market advantages or you know near different market segments Or what is going to be a cost structure, right? You know, like, yeah, there's some investment needed to develop this product For sure. Uh, but like how is how is it going to make you know revenue like our money for this right so in this case You know if we're gonna charge like Paypal check out plus record. We're gonna charge a percentage fees Uh on each transaction, you know, that's how we're gonna make money on this one Uh, whether you know, so it's a flat percentage rate for each recurring transaction That's how you know, this product is supposed to paypal record is supposed to make money Um And it's also important to keep in mind that you know, what problem it is solving and what is the value proposition As you kind of see here that paypal record is kind of like providing Um, and we also see here like, you know How are we gonna reach this smb's right? So we're gonna use like email marketing To reach those smb's we can also do like content marketing on smb business account pages We can also do like seo marketing to reach those target customers once we have this product in place Um, you know, like what are some of the key metrics that we're gonna use to track this right? Um So we will list some metrics here and that that will kind of like also depend on what state of the the product is but We're gonna look at cost per acquisition. You know, what is the lack of value? You know, what is average revenue per user? Uh, what is the monthly recurring revenue? Right? How what is the churn rate? How often do the smb's churn? You know, once they're subscribed to this paypal record Uh, so I mean this kind of gives an overall thing that you know, this this product idea or the product strategy and the vision that we talked about This is like grounded in some solid work that has been put forward, right? Okay, um, let's move on Let's move on to now this product roadmap, right? Uh, this if you remember the pyramid that we talked about This is kind of like the the last piece of it, right? Um, so what exactly is product roadmap, right? So a product roadmap is a strategic document Uh to accomplish well tasks Uh for the success of any product, right? um So it's kind of like describes how are you gonna meet the key milestones to realize your product strategy and vision So now and you have this you have you have defined your product vision You define what your strategy is like, you know, how are you gonna like who is like those the key components of the product strategy Now the main question is like how are you gonna reach that vision and strategy like what do you describe? So that's where kind of like the product roadmap comes in Uh, a good way to put is like if your product strategy and vision are about defining why and what Product roadmaps are all about defining how and when now. It's like we're getting into like the more Like details of it like okay, you define your vision you define your strategy Now how are you gonna achieve that I can win right? That's where the product roadmaps come in Okay, um so um product roadmaps actually are a pretty You know, this is kind of like the point of contention in like many companies Because you know, like all different companies have different ways. How do you find this? Uh, and you know, and and there's like very like There's like a lot of wasteful Uh aspect of product roadmaps as well in the sense that you know, if you're not you're not defining it correctly It can lead to a lot of you know, wastage of time resources and effort as well So it's very important to you know, kind of create that right and and kind of like, you know Follow some of the steps that I highlight here. So if you want to achieve an optimal product roadmap And in terms of like how often should you do that? You know, like product roadmap is kind of like very from company to company You know, like some companies might do it once a year. Some might do like every six months Or some might even do you know every quarter it kind of like varies Depending on your size of the company The culture of the company and like, you know, how often do they think about this product roadmaps? Right, for example, like some startups might do it quarterly because you know, they are in the early stages and they have to You know adapt quickly to what's happening in the for the business Some of the bigger companies they might do like yearly or you know, semi-annually for the product roadmap because just because They have a more mature market and they you know need uh, don't need to like take Steps to revise the product roadmap that often um Okay, so let's so here is like, you know What are the key things that you should keep in mind and you should also keep in mind that this product roadmap Is an iterative exercise or it's iterative process. It's not like, you know, you just do it one time and you're done Right. Uh, so the steps that I highlight here. These might have to be repeated at some Time or form, you know, depending on how you're progressing So don't think that it's just like, you know, you just follow it once and you're kind of like done So it's kind of like an iterative process and it requires some time and effort and collaboration between stakeholders and executives and teams to kind of like get this right Um, so first is like, you know, you need to understand the business goals and priorities for the year Like, you know, what are the business goals and priorities to the other point? Which I mentioned that you're even you're what you're proposing for your product in terms of vision and study That should even align with this because then it helps you to kind of align what you want to do with the business goals and priorities for the year um There should be, you know, work some work done in terms of identifying the problems that can be solved, right? There are different ways to get that You know problems like you can use product users data, customer feedback, competitive analysis, tech debt There's like a lot of other, you know, different ways how you can, you know, find, you know, what you need needs to be part of the product roadmap um Important thing like you should align with your internal teams and stakeholders, you know, it's It's one thing to define product vision and strategy But it's it's equally important to kind of like socialize that with your internal teams and stakeholders to make sure that everyone has a shared vision, right? Because if you don't have a shared vision our understanding of the product roadmap It'll be difficult, you know for teams to get aligned with this product roadmap and finally to kind of like even You know convince executives that this is a like a good idea for a product roadmap for us to kind of like pursue It's important to also define the success metrics of initiatives on the roadmaps and map them to business goals like this is The most important thing that you know, you should define Any things that you put on the roadmap like what are you going to make? How is what are the some of the key success metrics and how does that map to the business goals, right? That's a very important step um Productization like there could be like a lot of other things a lot of things that you want to mind I may want to put it in the product roadmap, but you know using some kind of framework to how you're going to prioritize Whether it's rise or value and effort or some other framework is also important because There is only like limited Capacity in terms of tech resources and time And even product managers and designers that you can you can have right? So it's very important to kind of like define What are the initiatives that give you the you know the most value? for for your You know kind of for the resources that you have right and the time that you have um I mean the next one is not a surprise getting alignment on the roadmap with executive and stakeholders I mean most people would think that that's uh, you know, that's given but it's not If you have done this exercise, uh, you realize that it's you know, that that step is Is not easy as it seems And then you know, finally you should like share this finalize the roadmap and share because you know this roadmap is it's not like a You know one time document as I was saying, you know things can change So it should be a living document and you should keep it in a way that it's shareable and and and it's you know It's like everyone has the latest picture of that. So it's very important to do that as well okay, um So i'm just gonna quickly look at you know, what are the different kind of uh product roadmaps that are that you know That that kind of like exist. Um, so i've just highlighted the the key ones that i've kind of seen um in different companies have So you can have like a project based roadmaps, right? You know, which are like I think these are like least flexible because you tie your projects to certain quarters And then you know, you're kind of like tying yourself up that you know, you have to achieve that by the time Then you have like this theme based roadmaps. Um Which are that which are improvement or project based roadmaps But what you're doing here is essentially you're defining like key themes and goals and not exact Projects that you want to deliver by certain quarters, right? So you are kind of like in this case free to choose What kind of projects that you want under those themes to achieve those business goals? um I think the last one is something, you know, which is um, you know, which will Require some work from the company side to get there like not all companies would be able to directly go there Uh, especially if they have like haven't reached even like theme based roadmaps So last one I would say is the most flexible But it also requires a lot of work and you know majority on the part of the The company and the teams to kind of like reach there So that's about most of the about like the outcome focused roadmaps the outcome based roadmaps. Um We are we we're just defining what are the outcomes you want to achieve and you know What we are doing now next in future to kind of like achieve that right and we're going to see some examples So to kind of like solidify this concept as well So this is just an example of you know, what a typical project based roadmap will look like Right, so you have your typical, um, you know, like your your strategy is defined for your product that you know, whether it's like personalization Uh, whether it's original content watching experience interactive games and stories like so these are kind of like your In the netflix case, you know, your value propositions Uh for the strategy and like, you know, what and what are you doing to kind of achieve that? Right? So for example for personalization, we're gonna have a more algorithm test or like a voice recognition kind of like, um A product that you are, you know Working a feature that you are working towards our language deduction feature, right? So these are kind of like Some projects which are aligned, uh, you know for for that personalization Component, right? So as I was saying like, you know, the the drawback with this one, uh, in my experience is that You know, like what happens for example If the model algorithm test doesn't work in q1 or you know, it kind of oversuits into q2, right? Then, you know, you have a ripple effect and you know, things can start to fall pretty like, um It can have a ripple effect and then, you know, you won't know like, you know What are you going to achieve under personalization aspect? Uh for your product strategy, right? So, you know, that's the kind of like downside that you know, you're like kind of like tying yourself up in all these And once you don't achieve or don't, you know, achieve one of these projects in a quarter Then you have the ripple effect and then you have to kind of like explain, you know What's happening to all your stakeholders and executives, right? So That is why, you know, I wouldn't suggest, um, you know, like having such kind of like, uh, roadmaps You know, especially, you know, if the you can, you know, come up with more advanced like the team based or the outcome Oriented product roadmaps Uh Yeah, um, so team based definitely and kind of like, I would say is An improvement, definitely improvement over a quarter ones because what you're defining is, you know, loosely the themes, um That you want to achieve over a certain quarters and you know what and you're kind of like loosely Tying it, you know, as you see here, like, you know, this is can start from q1 and can go up to mid of q2 Right and then the other one team We have like, you know, starting in mid q2 and go up to, you know, towards the end of q3 doesn't have like A pretty solid defined date and then you see there is some kind of room wiggle room as well And the key thing is that, you know, you see here that the initiatives under it, you know, like those are Something, you know, which are like kind of like flexible So you can for example, for user growth, you can come with a new website You can come up with pricing review or you can add something else, right? So those are kind of like something which is, you know, up to the teams to decide how best to You know, uh, you know, like depending on For the team user growth one of the, you know, kind of the metrics and how does it tie To the business goal that you plan to achieve for that, you know, the You know, the projects that you want to come up under it Those are pretty flexible So that kind of gives the team flexibility to try different things and see like how are you going to meet, uh, You know, the objectives the goals and objectives under user growth, right? Uh, so that's kind of like the different difference from a typical project based product roadmaps Um, so same thing like, you know, when you're presenting this like, you know, when you're presenting a teams, you can, you know Look at all those different, uh, you know, kind of like the projects that you want to run under this to achieve those goals But maybe when you're presenting the executives, you just present the high level teams that you have and what are the goals that you want to achieve Uh, you know as part of this for the business, right? You don't have to like go into all the details yet, you know, the things are not finalized yet, right? So that's the kind of like the flexibility that you get with this team-based product roadmaps Um Let's look at outcome based, right? So outcome based, uh, is Is I would say the most flexible one because so what do you see here is for netflix, right? So you're defined on this side, you know, the outcomes that you want to achieve And you know, what are the kind of the indicators for that, right? And then what do you do for that? Like what are you doing now next and consider? That is something for you to kind of like decide and you see here. There's like no Exact time frame attached to it, right? I mean the ones which are in now are the most you would say, uh, concrete Uh, you know, and when when you are complete with this the next and the consider, you know, you can start to put like some more You know, like time frame and structure around those, right? But at this point With this one, you know, the most certain are the ones which are in now and the next and consider are something Which are kind of like flexible and you can like change based on how things are progressing, right? So that's the kind of like the flexibility that you get with this and what you are focusing here is like the outcomes, right? Like for example You want to have the content? I can get anywhere else, right? If this is what we want to achieve, you know, what are you going to do that, uh, to achieve this, right? So for example, now you're starting a cold start merchandising test or make you do a weekly release test So these are things that we want to do to achieve this kind of outcome, right? So that's where this roadmap is pretty flexible And it kind of allows for, you know, like more innovation and more flexibility as well in terms of, you know, what, uh, product and engineering teams and design teams can achieve Okay, um Lastly, you know, I just want you guys to Uh, leave it some of the pitfalls that can happen in while building this product roadmaps, right? So one is You know, there's a like a lot of like a lot less But I would just highlight the main ones, right? Not communicating your product strategy and vision is definitely something, you know, which you want to watch out against You don't want to create your strategy and vision in silo. Um We already talked about thinking roadmap not as a list of features, but more as like themes or outcome focused um I mean third one is self-explanatory. It's not a static document But it's more of a living document. So things change, you know, everyone should be able to see how the product roadmap is And where does it stand today? It should not live in some power point shared in some You know drive where like nobody goes it should be more of a, you know, shareable document where, you know, things can be updated Uh, mostly in real time, you know, there are some Uh, like product like product board or some other companies which kind of make it pretty easy to kind of like share this document and have a kind of like ongoing discussion by seeing the latest picture of it So that's something to keep in mind um Not aligning with state stakeholders and executives. I mean It's like kind of like a typical way how you can derail a product roadmap if you don't have alignment um Right goals for as part of the product roadmap So if it's good to define themes and outcome But if you don't have like what are you going to achieve with those like what goals Business goals are you tying those to then, you know, like that makes the product roadmap not serve its purpose Because you want to make sure that what are you defining on your roadmap? Uh, it ties to some kind of business goals that you want to achieve as a company, right? um And also, you know last but not least you should also mention the assumption in the constraints that you have for the product roadmap, you know You know, whatever that does might be might be like, you know, whether you have constraints on resources you have made some assumptions on Whatever it is like, you know, like market sizing, you know customer Target customer, whatever it is, you should just make sure that everyone is on the same page at that Okay, uh, so as I said, uh, we started on with this pyramid and I'm gonna Bring you guys back to this expanded product strategy pyramid How the things that we talked about how those ship up, right? So you see here the vision has purpose and benefit Strategy, you know, we talked about the key components. So you start to add those things here And then you have roadmap which was the last right? So you start to kind of see like how this pyramids, you know start to fill up And then closely tied to that are the, you know, the okrs like the high level objectives And you know some team-based objectives that we want we saw in the product roadmap that you want to kind of like, uh, You know focus towards especially an air product roadmap being exercise Okay, uh, that's about it. Thank you everyone. Uh, it was great to have you and we'll Chat again with you later at the future webinar. Take care. Bye