How to Build An Agile Product Roadmap

Agile is an iterative approach to product development that emphasizes flexibility and collaboration. Agile product teams deliver software or its features incrementally rather than delivering everything at once.

An agile product roadmap is a living document that helps product teams focus on the most important initiatives that deliver value to the users while remaining adaptive and responsive to changes in the market, the product’s business goals, and their users’ needs.

A product roadmap in agile gives the following advantages to product teams:

1. Increased user satisfaction: Action items or initiatives are added on how it serves the users which makes the product development process user-centric
2. Reduced risk: Every initiative in an agile product roadmap is data backed which decreases the chances of creating an undesirable product
3. Improved visibility and collaboration: The product team, users, and stakeholders will all remain on the same page throughout the product lifecycle

To understand how a product roadmap in agile is better, let’s compare it with a traditional (waterfall) roadmap.

Difference between Agile vs Waterfall roadmap

Now that you are aware of what agile is and how an agile product roadmap is different from its traditional counterpart, let’s take a look at agile product roadmap examples.

Types of Agile Product Roadmaps

The structure of your agile product roadmap depends on various factors like priorities, available resources, and business models. Let’s look at four popular agile product roadmap examples and the unique functionalities they offer.

1. Goal-oriented product roadmap

A goal-oriented product roadmap focuses on the product's high-level goals and how to achieve them through a prioritized set of features and functionalities. 

For example, if you are creating a music app, one of the high level-goals could be allowing users to create their own music collections. Consequently, a desired feature would be creating playlists and adding music from different artists to them.

The unique feature of this type of roadmap is that it helps to keep the team focused on the overarching goals of the product, which makes the team outcome-based. This allows both the product team and stakeholders to visualize the mission of the product and focus on the North Star metrics to monitor its progress.

2. Story mapping

Story mapping is a visual way of organizing a product backlog into a hierarchy of user stories. 

The unique feature of this type of roadmap is that it helps the team to understand the user's journey and prioritize features that deliver value to the user at each step of the journey. Story mapping is particularly useful for products with complex user flows.

It is crucial for product teams to visualize the user flow first before creating user stories and putting them into a story-mapped product roadmap. Zeda.io facilitates this by providing a collaborative space for product teams where they can create and exchange feedback on multiple user flows.

3. Sprint roadmap

A sprint roadmap outlines the features and functionalities that will be delivered in the upcoming sprints.

The unique feature of this type of roadmap is that it helps to keep the team focused on the most important work for the next few weeks, while also allowing for flexibility to adjust the plan as needed based on feedback and new information.

4. Now-next-later roadmap

A now-next-later roadmap divides the product backlog into three categories: features that are being worked on presently (current sprint), features that will be worked on in upcoming sprints, and features that will be worked on in the far future. 

The unique feature of this type of roadmap is that it helps product teams bring stakeholders and users on the same page while allowing them to see what comes next. This encourages feedback from both which informs the product team to either commit to or modify the initiatives on the roadmap.

Although it is time-efficient to grab an agile product roadmap template off the shelf, keep in mind that a product’s roadmap is developed around the needs of a product team, not vice-versa. In addition to these roadmaps, there is an external roadmap that primarily serves as a product update for the external stakeholders. It keeps them engaged with the product and its ongoing refinement.

In the following sections, we'll provide you with an overview of roadmap benefits your company can take advantage of.

Hence, it is beneficial to learn how to create a simple, yet effective agile product roadmap for your team.

How to build an Agile Roadmap?

Every product team faces different challenges in terms of stakeholder requests, user requirements, and budget constraints. Therefore, it is important to know how to build a product roadmap that allows you to navigate these challenges while you deliver value to your users and stakeholders. The first step is to understand your product strategy and business goals.

1. Start with product strategy and goals

One of the many advantages of using an agile product roadmap is aligning the product strategy with the business goals and user requirements. The first step to creating an agile product roadmap is to identify them both and create a product development strategy.

An inefficient product strategy results when the business goals and user requirements are not understood properly. It is, therefore, essential for a product manager to collaborate with the stakeholders and target audience to create a solid agile roadmap.

2. Convert goals into initiatives (action items)

After identifying why you need to build a product, you need to figure out how to build it. In this step, you convert goals into action items such as feature requests and bug fixes, and break them down further into small pieces so your team can complete them within weeks or months.

Throughout this step, make sure that the action items are not vague or ambiguous because it can make tracking their progress difficult. Be actionable and informative. Here is how Zeda.io allows you to do that:

3. Prioritize initiatives with your team

This is where you use a feature prioritization framework to weigh each initiative on your agile product backlog and determine the sequence you approach them. Another activity in this step is grouping similar initiatives together to easily manage them.

Product teams should be careful to not let their personal biases affect how they rank action items. Here is how Zeda.io helps you prioritize your initiatives quantitatively through RICE prioritization:

4. Schedule product/feature releases

This is where you discuss the complexity of each task in the order they are prioritized and set deadlines for them. Product managers can empower their teams to set deadlines by making relevant user and market data accessible to them.

Always maintain a healthy balance between speed and quality. Here qualitative initiative prioritization frameworks like value vs. effort matrix might help each of your team members while setting deadlines for tasks assigned to them.

5. Collect feedback from users

Make a habit of collecting user feedback after each update, whether it delivered a new feature or fixed an existing bug. This will allow you to validate your existing hypotheses and help you add initiatives to your agile product roadmap that deliver value to your users.

However, it can be tricky for product teams to collect feedback from users routinely after each sprint, go through each of the responses, and convert them into action items. Zeda.io simplifies this process by collating user feedback in one space where you and your team can prioritize them collaboratively.

6. Monitor business health and product performance

The last step of building an agile product roadmap helps you ensure you are reaching both long and short-term goals. In this step, it is crucial to determine which metrics reflect your business performance and which ones let you know whether your users are delighted.

Even after determining the key short and long-term metrics, it can be challenging for product teams to cycle between multiple data analytics tools to monitor these numbers. Zeda.io helps product teams do that easily by bringing product data from various sources such as Data Studio and Mixpanel.

Summing up

An agile product roadmap allows teams to deliver value to their users incrementally while being flexible and adaptive to changing conditions. Compared to a waterfall product roadmap, an agile roadmap works on a shorter time scale and requires resources based on immediate requirements.

While working with an agile product roadmap, it is crucial to collaborate with your team members (like product designers, developers), stakeholders, and users to align the action items with your product’s vision and business goals.

Zeda.io helps teams to create effective agile product roadmaps by providing a platform where they can easily manage user feedback, collaborate with stakeholders, prioritize initiatives using data, and monitor relevant product and business metrics.

You can use the platform’s native features or bring in your existing tools via integrations to get started within minutes.

Start your free trial today.

Suggested Read: What is a Good Product Requirement Document (PRD)?