{"id":77680,"date":"2022-02-09T11:53:29","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T11:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?p=77680"},"modified":"2025-10-02T16:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T15:24:08","slug":"building-product-roadmaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/building-product-roadmaps\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Your First Product Roadmap (and Why It Shouldn\u2019t Be Perfect)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Getting started with building your first product roadmap<\/a> can feel daunting. I\u2019ve seen product managers freeze at the blank page, convinced that their first roadmap has to be perfect \u2014 fully formed, detailed, and strategically watertight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That pressure often turns into a mental roadblock: trying to craft a perfect, complete roadmap<\/a> that articulates strategy in one go. And as a result, they struggle to take the first steps. We\u2019ve all been there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here\u2019s the truth: your first roadmap shouldn\u2019t be perfect.<\/strong>

It\u2019s why I often include a caveat when I\u2019m showing people through our ProdPad demo<\/a> and Sandbox<\/a> environments. The pre-made example roadmaps<\/a> are too<\/em> good. After all, these are demo environments, and we\u2019ve been iterating on these for months and years.

You’re not being fair to yourself if you expect to be building a product roadmap like that straight out of the gate. In fact, your first roadmap shouldn\u2019t<\/strong><\/em> look like this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Now-Next-Later<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n


Instead, I\u2019d be proud if your first roadmap looked something like this:
<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Why? Because a roadmap is a prototype<\/em><\/strong> for your product strategy<\/a>.

As simple as you can articulate and test. And in the case of a product strategy, that\u2019s usually outlining some key problem areas or opportunities you think are noteworthy, and laying them out in the order you think they should be tackled.

That\u2019s your first roadmap.

Is that what you\u2019re going to go DO<\/em> and build now? Oh hell, no! That would be incredibly presumptuous. On par with taking your back-of-napkin sketch of an untested idea and ordering a developer to go build it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Your first roadmap is just the beginning <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

That first product roadmap is a starting point for learning. Now that you\u2019ve laid out your assumptions, you\u2019ve got a handy way to check them with other stakeholders and see what holds water or not.\u00a0

And your first roadmap is going<\/em> to be imperfect. Your stakeholders are going <\/em>to pick holes in it. Product managers need to have thick skin for exactly this reason. You\u2019re not here to be right. You\u2019re here to facilitate the discussions to get us all to better<\/em>.

Over time, and over the course of lots of useful and enlightening discussions, you\u2019ll start to unpick what the real problems and opportunities are, and what order your team can tackle them in to be most likely to achieve your objectives<\/a> and reach your ultimate vision<\/a>. Over time, you’ll iterate on your roadmap, and move from the hot mess you started with, to a cohesive strategic plan.

It\u2019ll become more granular and useful to a wider range of stakeholders. It\u2019ll be more robust, as more and more eyes and brains from around the organization sense-check it. And It\u2019ll look more like the roadmaps we showed you in your ProdPad demo when you first got on board.\u00a0

It\u2019ll never be 100% perfect though. That\u2019s a bit of control that we\u2019ve all just got to let go of. After all, we don\u2019t have perfect information, so we can\u2019t craft a perfect plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick a format that embraces imperfection<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here at ProdPad<\/a>, we pioneered the Now-Next-Later roadmap format<\/a> because it has that sense of imperfect information built right in: You\u2019ve got higher granularity of information about things right in front of you, and less for things further and further out on the horizon.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n