{"id":8999,"date":"2020-11-12T17:56:35","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T17:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?p=8999"},"modified":"2025-01-13T16:26:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:26:45","slug":"experiment-driven-roadmap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature-driven Roadmap vs Experiment-driven Roadmap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Someone asked me the other day:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m wondering if roadmaps can cover experimental features, and how to balance that with launchable features?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d actually like to turn that around and make the point that the roadmap should entirely be driven by experiments<\/a>, rather than features. Let me explain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feature Driven Roadmap<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A roadmap that outlines a bunch of features to be built will result in… a bunch of features being built! That may be good or bad for the product, but typically any outcome that\u2019s reached as a result of a feature-driven roadmap is reached somewhat unintentionally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experiment Driven Roadmap<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

An experiment-driven roadmap is intentionally in its design. Each experiment, like any good scientist would expect, should be started with a hypothesis and expected outcome. With an experiment-driven roadmap, you\u2019re essentially betting that if you run enough experiments, enough of them will work, and you\u2019ll hit the overall outcomes you were hoping for. You\u2019re stating upfront what you expect the outcomes to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now an experiment on a roadmap can be a lot of things. Sometimes an experiment is<\/em> to add a new feature. You bet that if you add this feature here<\/em>, then people will pay you there<\/em>. That\u2019s something you can outline upfront, and measure success on. Ideally, you\u2019re finding ways to minimize the work that has to go into that experiment to test that it\u2019s going to work out for you. That\u2019s why we don\u2019t build the whole<\/em> feature up front, and have a bunch of lean tactics for testing things at all the stages before you start spending precious development time on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But an experiment doesn\u2019t have to be a new feature at all. Sometimes it might be just changing a feature. Or taking a feature away. That\u2019s a pretty sure bet for at least simplifying your user experience! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And lots of experiments aren\u2019t feature-related at all. You might experiment with positioning, as in how you talk about your product or what it does, or with pricing and packaging. You can often make a huge impact on your outcomes by not touching any features at all and still hit those all important business goals! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lean Roadmap<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The lean roadmap in ProdPad is designed to be experiment-driven. Each of the cards on the roadmap are initiatives, or problems to be solved. Each is connected to the objective, as well as to key results<\/a>, so you know ahead of time what you\u2019re measuring and what success looks like. Each of these cards then include any number of ideas, or what we consider to be experiments<\/em>. Potential solutions or things you\u2019ll try in order to solve the problem outlined on the card. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Experiment-driven
A roadmap card in ProdPad with multiple ideas attached<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The roadmap isn\u2019t a list of features, a list of things to do, it’s a product strategy. You don\u2019t start at the top and work your way down. It\u2019s a map of the problems you might solve<\/a> and the ways you might go about solving them. As you try each experiment, you reflect the results back into the roadmap, whether it was a Success<\/em> or a Failed Experiment<\/em>. If you rack up enough successes, you might be able to move on to the next card early. If nothing\u2019s working, you might need to work with your team to come up with other ways you might solve the problem, new experiments to try. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your experiments work, you might end up with features you can launch out there to the world! Each launchable feature should have a history of experiments that led to its creation, each experiment giving you further confidence that the final feature will in fact deliver on the outcome that was outlined in the experiment outline from the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Takeaways <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So instead of thinking about your features as experimental or launchable, turn that around and think about your experiments as either features or something outside of that box. Your roadmap can and should include your experiments and help you track your path to the outcomes you\u2019re looking for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How about you? How do you show experiments on your roadmap or elsewhere in your product workflow? Let us know in the comments below \ud83d\udc47<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone asked me the other day: I\u2019m wondering if roadmaps can cover experimental features, and how to balance that with launchable features? I\u2019d actually like to turn that around and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"pp_uni_tag":[],"class_list":["post-8999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-product-leadership"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFeature-driven Roadmap - Experiment-driven Roadmap<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An experiment-driven roadmap is what's needed to drive your product strategy forward and hit those important business goals.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Feature-driven Roadmap vs Experiment-driven Roadmap\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An experiment-driven roadmap is what's needed to drive your product strategy forward.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ProdPad\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ProdPad\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bastow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-12T17:56:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-01-13T16:26:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Facebook-ExperimentalRoadmap.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Janna Bastow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Feature-driven Roadmap vs Experiment-driven Roadmap\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"An experiment-driven roadmap is what's needed to drive your product strategy forward and hit those important business goals.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@simplybastow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@prodpad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Janna Bastow\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Feature-driven Roadmap - Experiment-driven Roadmap","description":"An experiment-driven roadmap is what's needed to drive your product strategy forward and hit those important business goals.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Feature-driven Roadmap vs Experiment-driven Roadmap","og_description":"An experiment-driven roadmap is what's needed to drive your product strategy forward.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/","og_site_name":"ProdPad","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ProdPad\/","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bastow","article_published_time":"2020-11-12T17:56:35+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-01-13T16:26:45+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":630,"url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Facebook-ExperimentalRoadmap.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Janna Bastow","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Feature-driven Roadmap vs Experiment-driven Roadmap","twitter_description":"An experiment-driven roadmap is what's needed to drive your product strategy forward and hit those important business goals.","twitter_creator":"@simplybastow","twitter_site":"@prodpad","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Janna Bastow"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/"},"author":{"name":"Janna Bastow","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ceec8b615b0ad09e9199ba2fa8545e8c"},"headline":"Feature-driven Roadmap vs Experiment-driven Roadmap","datePublished":"2020-11-12T17:56:35+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-13T16:26:45+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/"},"wordCount":733,"commentCount":2,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Blog-ExperimentalRoadmap.jpg","articleSection":["Product Leadership"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/","name":"Feature-driven Roadmap - Experiment-driven Roadmap","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Blog-ExperimentalRoadmap.jpg","datePublished":"2020-11-12T17:56:35+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-13T16:26:45+00:00","description":"An experiment-driven roadmap is what's needed to drive your product strategy forward and hit those important business goals.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Blog-ExperimentalRoadmap.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Blog-ExperimentalRoadmap.jpg","width":1920,"height":710,"caption":"Experiment-driven roadmap"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/experiment-driven-roadmap\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Latest Blogs","item":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/category\/latest-blogs\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Product Leadership","item":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/category\/latest-blogs\/product-leadership\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Feature-driven Roadmap vs Experiment-driven Roadmap"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/","name":"ProdPad","description":"Product Management Software","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#organization","name":"ProdPad","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/blue-full.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/blue-full.png","width":2050,"height":400,"caption":"ProdPad"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ProdPad\/","https:\/\/x.com\/prodpad","https:\/\/instagram.com\/prodpad","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/prodpad\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCXHOx5Ed-6sHPujypIlhdMA"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ceec8b615b0ad09e9199ba2fa8545e8c","name":"Janna Bastow","description":"Janna Bastow is co-founder of ProdPad, software that helps product managers plan and deliver better products. Janna also organizes ProductTank events around the world, including Mind The Product, a global community of product managers. She likes to inspire great product conversations by asking: \u201cWhat problem are you trying to solve?\u201d","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bastow","https:\/\/x.com\/simplybastow"],"url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/author\/janna-bastow\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8999"},{"taxonomy":"pp_uni_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pp_uni_tag?post=8999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}