Product Roadmap. Part 3

 

https://tinyurl.com/34wder49

Roger Martin. The Design of Business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage

 

Extract from amazon.com :

Most companies today have innovation envy. They yearn to come up with a game—changing innovation like Apple's iPod, or create an entirely new category like Facebook. Many make genuine efforts to be innovative—they spend on R&D, bring in creative designers, hire innovation consultants. But they get disappointing results.

Why? In The Design of Business, Roger Martin offers a compelling and provocative answer: we rely far too exclusively on analytical thinking, which merely refines current knowledge, producing small improvements to the status quo.

To innovate and win, companies need design thinking. This form of thinking is rooted in how knowledge advances from one stage to another—from mystery (something we can't explain) to heuristic (a rule of thumb that guides us toward solution) to algorithm (a predictable formula for producing an answer) to code (when the formula becomes so predictable it can be fully automated). As knowledge advances across the stages, productivity grows and costs drop-creating massive value for companies.

Martin shows how leading companies such as Procter & Gamble, Cirque du Soleil, RIM, and others use design thinking to push knowledge through the stages in ways that produce breakthrough innovations and competitive advantage.

Filled with deep insights and fresh perspectives, The Design of Business reveals the true foundation of successful, profitable innovation.

The Design of Business: Why design thinking is the next competitive advantage, by Roger Martin was a positive surprise as it was a quick read, well structured, delivered several interesting concepts and some in depth cases on design thinking and business model innovation.

Even though several of the cases are familiar for many readers (such as P&G, Apple, Cirque du Soleil, McDonalds and RIM) Roger, who is dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, professor of strategic management, and author of the book The Opposable Mind, adds interesting perspectives and sometimes information from behind the scenes working as a consultant and advisor. The book is an extension of Roger's popular article (free download) from 2004 with the same name.

The book in three bullet points:

It introduces and explores the concept of the "Knowledge Funnel" describing how knowledge advances from mystery to heuristic, to algorithm for businesses to gain efficiency and lower costs, and the activities of moving across the knowledge stages (exploration) and operating within each knowledge stage (exploitation).

To accelerate the pace at which knowledge advances through the Knowledge Funnel, it presents the concept of design thinking as the necessary balance between analytical thinking using deductive and inductive reasoning (with the need for reliability and the ability to produce consistent and predictable outcomes), and intuitive thinking (with the need for validity and to produce outcomes that meet a desired objective).

It discusses challenges (primarily the results of proof-based analytical thinking) faced by organizations, CEOs and individuals within organizations, to build structures and processes that foster, support and reward a culture of design thinking, and how different CEOs have used different approaches to generate successful outcomes.

A brief summary of the different chapters:

1. The knowledge funnel: How discovery takes shape

The introductory chapter starts with a story about McDonalds journey from mystery (how and what did Californians want to eat) to algorithm (stripping away uncertainty, ambiguity, and judgment from almost all processes). It briefly discusses analytical thinking, intuitive thinking and design thinking, to solve mysteries and advance knowledge, and the fine balance between exploring new knowledge and exploiting existing one.

It introduces and explores the concept of the "Knowledge Funnel" describing how knowledge advances from mystery to heuristic, to algorithm for businesses to gain efficiency and lower costs. This is explored also in later chapters: "Mysteries are expensive, time consuming, and risky; they are worth tackling only because of the potential benefits of discovering a path out of the mystery to a revenue-generating heuristic", "The algorithm generates savings by turning judgment… …into a formula or set of rules that, if followed, will produce a desired solution" and “Computer code – the digital end point of the algorithm stage – is the most efficient expression of an algorithm”.

It also addresses the need for organizations to re-explore solved mysteries, even the founding ideas behind the business, and not get too comfortable focusing on the "administration of business" running an existing algorithm.

In addition, the first chapter presents abductive logic, and some ideas originated by philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce; that it is not possible to prove a new thought concept, or idea in advance and that all new ideas can be validated only through the unfolding of future events. To advance knowledge we need to make a "logical leap of the mind" or an "inference to the best explanation" (or "Leaps of Faith" that John Mullins and Randy Komisar calls it in the book Getting to plan B see review/summary) to imaging a heuristic for understanding a mystery. Free preview of Chapter 1

2. The reliability bias: Why advancing knowledge is so hard

The second chapter focus on the distinction between reliability (produce consistent, predictable outcomes by narrowing the scope of a test to what can be measured in a replicable, quantitative way) and validity (produce outcomes that meet a desired objective, that through the passage of time will be shown to be correct, often incorporating some aspects of subjectivity and judgment to be achieved). Roger's main point in the chapter (or even in the book) is that today's business world is focusing too much on reliability (due to three forces: demand for proof, an aversion to bias and the constraints of time), with algorithmic decision-making techniques using various systems (such as ERP, CRM, TQM, KM) to crunch data objectively and extrapolate from the past to make predictions about the future. "What organizations dedicated to running reliable algorithms often fail to realize is that while they reduce the risk of small variations in their businesses, they increase the risk of cataclysmic events that occur when the future no longer resembles the past and the algorithm is no longer relevant or useful" With the turbulent times we live in, where new mysteries constantly spring up that reliable systems won't address or even acknowledge, businesses risk being outflanked by new entrants solving old and new mysteries developing new heuristics and algorithms. "Without validity, an organization has little chance of moving knowledge across the funnel. Without reliability, an organization will struggle to exploit the rewards of its advances… the optimal approach... is to seek a balance of both"

3. Design thinking: How thinking like a designer can create sustainable advantage

Chapter three starts with an interesting case of Research In Motion (RIM) that leads into the discussion of what is really design thinking. Roger uses the quote by Tim Brown of IDEO, "a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity" and adds himself "a person or organization instilled with that discipline is constantly seeking a fruitful balance between reliability and validity, between art and science, between intuition and analytics, and between exploration and exploitation". That designers live in the world of abductive reasoning, actively look for new data points, challenge accepted explanations to posit what could possibly be true (in contrast to the two dominant forms of logic - deduction and induction, with the goal to declare a conclusion to be true or false).

The chapter ends with the first discussion on roadblocks to design thinking (many more to come), with one being the corporate tendency to settle at the current stage in the knowledge funnel, and another how "highly paid executives or specialists with knowledge, turf and paychecks to defend” has the company's heuristics in their heads with no interest in advancing to the algorithm stage, making the executives less important. This leads nicely into the forth chapter about the transformation of Procter & Gamble.

4. Transforming the corporation: The design of Procter & Gamble

A.G. Lafley's transformation of Procter & Gamble from an incumbent in crisis to an innovative and efficient organization in just a few years has been widely covered in the business literature. As a student some years back I made an internship in P&G's Connect & Develop (connect with innovators outside the company and develop their ideas for P&G products), and have since been reading up on everything I can find about the transition and why other companies have not been able to make the same transition. Roger adds interesting perspectives, from his work with the company and its first vice president of innovation strategy and design, Claudia Kotchka, to develop "a comprehensive program that would provide practical experience in design thinking to P&G leaders". One of the top-down efforts being to drive brand-building from heuristic (in the minds of scarce and costly senior executives) toward algorithm, providing less senior employees the tools needed to do much of the work previously done by high-cost elites who then could then focus on the next mystery in order to create the next brand experience. The chapter also covers the Connect & Develop initiative and how it bulked up P&G's supply of ideas in the mystery-heuristic transition where it was thin, enabling it to feed more opportunities into its well-developed heuristics and algorithms of development, branding, positioning, pricing and distribution.

Another highly interesting topic covered in the chapter is the change of processes within P&G, including the strategy review, at P&G. Lafley recognized that the existing processes was a recipe for producing reliability, not validity, "so risky creative leaps were out of the question". A transition from annual reviews with category managers pitching, "with all the inductive and deductive proof needed to gain the approval of the CEO and senior management" to "forcing category managers to toss around ideas with senior management… to become comfortable with the logical leaps of mind needed to generate new ideas".

5. The balancing act: How design-thinking organizations embrace reliability and validity

The chapter focuses on the need to balance reliability and validity, and the challenges to do so (foremost all structures, processes and cultural norms tilted towards reliability). "Financial planning and reward systems are dramatically tilted toward running an existing heuristic or algorithm and must be modified in significant ways to create a balance between reliability and validity". Roger presents a rough rule of thumb "when the challenge is to seize an emerging opportunity, the solution is to perform like a design team: work iteratively, build a prototype, elicit feedback, refine it, rinse, repeat… On the other hand, running a supply chain, building a forecasting model, and compiling the financials are functions best left to people who work in fixed roles with permanent tasks". The chapter feels somewhat repetitive, in the uphill battle for validity, and more obstacles of change are presented:

• Preponderance of Training in Analytical Thinking
• Reliability orientation of key stakeholders
• Ease of defending reliability vs. validity

In this chapter, Roger also discusses how design-thinking companies have to develop new reward systems and norms, with an example of how to think about constraints. "In reliability-driven, analytical-thinking companies, the norm is to see constraints as the enemy", whereas when validity is the goal "constraints are opportunities" and "they frame the mystery that needs to be solved".

6. World-class explorers: Leading the design-thinking organization

In chapter six several interesting cases, and approaches of different CEOs, are presented, one being the widely covered case of Guy Laliberté, and his Cirque du Soleil. Again Roger adds to the existing body of knowledge with the twist of reliability vs. validity in creating a new market, and the knowledge funnel taking a one-off street festival into an unstoppable international $600 million-a-year business with four thousand employees. Laliberté has reinvented Cirque's creative and business models time and time again, "usually over protests that he was fixing what was not broken and that he could destroy the company". Other CEOs and cases covered in the chapter are James Hackett of Steelcase, Bob Ulrich of Target, and Steve Jobs of Apple.

The role of the CEO and different approaches to build design-friendly organizational processes and norms into companies are discussed referring to the different cases presented.

Again, Roger returns to the reliability vs validity battle, now from a CEO perspective with terms such as "resisting reliability", "those systems-whether they are for budgeting, capital appropriation, product development…", and "counter the internal and external pressures toward reliability".

7. Getting personal: Developing yourself as a design thinker

In the final chapter the focus is on how a non-CEO can function as a design thinker and develop skills to individually produce more valid outcomes even in reliability-oriented companies. Roger refers back to his previous book The Opposable Mind, and the concept of a personal knowledge system as a way of thinking about how we acquire knowledge and expertise. The knowledge system has three components:

• Stance: "Who am I in the world and what am I trying to accomplish?"
• Tools: "With what tools and models do I organize my thinking and understand the world?"
• Experiences: "With what experiences can I build my repertoire of sensitivities and skills.

Roger then presents the design thinker's stance, key tools (observation, imagination, and configuration), and how to obtain experiences by trying new things and test their boundaries.

Roger also presents five things that the design thinker needs to do to be more effective with colleagues at the extremes of the reliability and validity spectrum:

• Reframe extreme views as a creative challenge
• Empathize with your colleagues on the extremes
• Learn to speak the languages of both reliability and validity
• Put unfamiliar concepts in familiar terms
• When it comes to proof, use size to your advantage

This is a great book and I recommend business developers and business model innovators to buy it, as it is a quick read with several important concepts and interesting cases to learn from. I believe design thinking has the potential to help managers break out from the Matrix they live in and again realize the real world behind the existing algorithms.

https://tinyurl.com/4hd6mk64

Organisational power

 

The powers and duties of directors were the focus of some earlier posts, however these make quite narrow use of the concept of ‘power’ – which has many forms and applications.

My previous post dealt with powers legally (and therefore legitimately) afforded non-profit boards and directors, and made reference to those powers being distinctly different to other expressions of power, such as ‘power over’, ‘power with’ and ‘power within’. The header image above offers definitions for each of these, which may aid your reflection on the distinctions.

Types of Power

French and Raven catalogued the bases of social power in 1959, and while there have been some later variations on this typology, their analysis continues to be widely used today.

The chart below positions legitimate power (the right to exercise control) adjacent to informational power, at the boundary between the major categories of positional and personal power. While coercion often involves the abuse of power, from an organisational perspective, it also accommodates the authority to impose sanctions for non-compliance with policies or procedures. Getting the balance right in your organisation is a key determinant of your culture – and the likelihood that you will be identified as ‘an employer of choice’.

Sources of organisational power

Unpacking the sources of your legitimate organisational power a little further, the following schematic identifies various of the controls or ‘governance systems’ you are employing to achieve your purposes, and to meet performance and conformance obligations. Using this chart as a checklist of your control systems, you might identify some areas in which there are opportunities for improvement.

The power to delegate to committees or individuals is one such area, which many non-profits find tricky. This power is embedded within the ‘Use of organisational structure, rules and regulations’

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Product Roadmap: An Ultimate Guide to Successful Planning and Implementation

 

•  By Nchumbeni Yanthan

Introduction to Product Roadmaps

A clear plan is important in product development. Product roadmaps can be useful in this situation. They act as road maps for the process of making a product. A strategic document known as a product roadmap outlines the vision, objectives, and course of a product's development over time. It acts as a visual communication tool that aids teams and stakeholders in comprehending the direction and evolution of a product. Collaboration is simpler when everyone is aware of the product and why. We'll cover everything you need to know about product roadmaps in this guide, from their significance to best practices for creating and or using them successfully.

 

The Importance of a Product Roadmap

A well-crafted product roadmap plays a crucial role in an organization's success. It helps in:

Alignment: Ensuring that everyone is on the same page regarding the product's vision and goals.

Prioritization: Identifying and prioritizing features and improvements based on user needs and business objectives.

Transparency: Providing stakeholders, including customers, with a clear view of what to expect in the future.

Risk Mitigation: Identifying potential challenges and risks early in the development process.

 Types of Product Roadmaps

Product roadmaps come in various types, each catering to different needs and audiences. Some common types include:

1) Strategy & Market Roadmap

A Strategy & Market roadmap sets the long-term course for a product by aligning it with overarching business objectives and market dynamics. This roadmap acts as a visionary guide, helping the company navigate the competitive landscape and seize growth opportunities over the next several years.

2) Visionary Roadmap

The Visionary roadmap offers a high-level perspective, presenting a sweeping vision of the product's future without diving into specifics. It serves as an inspirational compass, encouraging innovation and creativity within teams by providing a broad direction without rigid details.

3) Technology Roadmap

A Technology roadmap is all about the evolution of a product's technical aspects. It outlines how the product's underlying technology will advance to stay current and competitive in the market.

4) Technology Across Product Roadmap

The Technology across Product roadmap focuses on coordinating technological improvements that span multiple products or versions. It ensures that these shared technology components are developed and upgraded cohesively across the product portfolio.

5) Platform Roadmap

A Platform roadmap concentrates on building or enhancing a foundational platform that other products or features rely on. It lays the groundwork for future product development, ensuring a solid base for expansion.

6) Internal & External Product Roadmap

The Internal Product roadmap is for guiding internal teams. It contains details about features, timelines, and dependencies, facilitating team collaboration. The External Product roadmap is designed to communicate the company's product plans to external stakeholders, including customers, investors, and partners. It focuses on customer-facing features and expected release dates, providing transparency to external parties about the product's future direction.

 Creating Your Product Roadmap

Creating an effective product roadmap involves these six key steps:

Define Clear Objectives: Start by setting specific goals for your product. Ensure these objectives align with your overall business strategy.

Gather Insights: Collect valuable information from customer feedback, market research, and team insights to inform your roadmap.

Prioritize Features: Evaluate and rank features or initiatives based on their impact, feasibility, and alignment with your goals.

Set Timelines: Assign realistic timelines to each feature, considering dependencies and resource availability.

Visualize the Roadmap: Use visualization techniques such as timelines, swimlanes, or color coding to create a clear, understandable roadmap.

Share and Adapt: Communicate the roadmap with stakeholders, gather feedback, and ensure alignment. Regularly update and adjust the roadmap as needed to stay on track and respond to changing priorities.

By following these streamlined steps, you can create a robust product roadmap process that guides your team toward achieving your product's objectives.

 Key Components of a Product Roadmap

A typical product roadmap consists of:

• Title and Overview: A concise description of the product and its purpose.
• Themes or Initiatives: High-level categories of work.
• Features and User Stories: Detailed breakdown of what's planned.
• Timeline: Indication of when each item will be delivered.
• Dependencies: Any interdependencies between features.

Roadmap Visualization Techniques

Selecting the right visualization technique is essential for conveying your product roadmap effectively:

Timeline Charts: Show features and milestones chronologically for a clear sequence.

Swimlanes: Categorize features by teams or themes for clarity, ideal with multiple groups.

Gantt Charts: Detail tasks, timelines, and dependencies, best for complex projects.

Priority Matrices: Visualize feature importance using value versus effort for prioritization.

Color Coding: Use colors to indicate statuses, priorities, or categories for quick understanding.

Roadmap Themes: Organize around themes or objectives to highlight contributions to broader goals.

Flowcharts: Illustrate user journeys and dependencies in processes or interactions.

Table-Based Roadmaps: Efficiently present feature details like descriptions and statuses.

Interactive Options: Choose between static, read-only roadmaps for simplicity or interactive versions for exploration and adjustments.

Aligning Your Roadmap with Business Goals

Making sure that your product's plans are in line with what your organization wants to achieve to is what it implies to align your roadmap with business objectives. Start by having a clear understanding of your company's overall goal in order to achieve this. Break these large goals into smaller, practical steps that your product can contribute to.

It's crucial to ensure that the features and initiatives on your roadmap directly support these smaller goals. Regularly review and update your roadmap to keep it aligned with any changes in your company's objectives. Effective communication with all teams involved is vital, ensuring everyone understands how the product is contributing to the broader business goals.

In simple terms, aligning your roadmap with business goals means making sure your product plans are synchronized with your company's aspirations, and staying adaptable to any shifts in those goals.

Common Roadmapping Challenges and Solutions

Here are the common challenges and concise solutions in roadmapping:

Common Roadmapping Challenges

• Shifting priorities due to market changes.
• Limited resources can disrupt execution.
• Misunderstandings across teams.
• Setting unrealistic goals or features.
• Roadmaps becoming inflexible.

Solutions

• Regularly update the roadmap for shifting priorities.
• Efficiently allocate resources based on priorities.
• Use visuals and regular meetings for clarity.
• Set achievable goals and timelines.
• Embrace flexibility for better adaptability.

Best Product Roadmap Tools to Use

You can plan and visualize the development of your products using a number of excellent product roadmap tools. Some of the top ones are:

1. ProductPlan
2. Roadmunk
3. Aha!
4. Trello
5. Jira
6. Monday.com
7. Asana
8. Smartsheet
9. Wrike
10. Airfocus

These tools vary in terms of features, pricing, and user-friendliness, so it's a good idea to explore them further and choose the one that best fits your team's needs and preferences.

Teams Benefiting from Product Roadmaps

Product roadmaps benefit various teams, including:

Product Management Teams

Product managers use roadmaps as central planning tools. They gain a clear vision of the product's trajectory, enabling them to make informed decisions, prioritize features, and allocate resources effectively.

Development and Engineering Teams

For development and engineering teams, roadmaps provide a structured plan to follow. They understand the sequencing of tasks, dependencies, and the overall project timeline, ensuring efficient and coordinated work.

Design Teams: Designers can align their creative efforts with the product's goals. With a roadmap, they know what features or enhancements are on the horizon, allowing them to create user interfaces and experiences that complement the overall vision.

Marketing and Sales Teams

Roadmaps offer valuable insights into upcoming product releases and key features. This information empowers marketing and sales teams to prepare their strategies, generate excitement, and engage with customers effectively.

Customer Support and Service Teams

Having visibility into the roadmap helps customer support and service teams anticipate changes and upcoming features. This allows them to proactively prepare for customer inquiries, provide better assistance, and enhance user satisfaction.

Executive Leadership

Company leaders gain a strategic overview of the product's direction through roadmaps. This enables them to align product development with broader business objectives and make informed decisions regarding resource allocation and investments.

External Stakeholders

Customers, investors, and partners also benefit from product roadmaps. They gain transparency into a product's future, which fosters trust, manages expectations, and encourages collaboration.

In essence, product roadmaps serve as a unifying tool, ensuring that all teams, both internal and external, are on the same page regarding the product's development journey. This alignment contributes to smoother operations, improved collaboration, and ultimately, the achievement of product and business goals.

Best Practices for Effective Roadmaps

To create and maintain effective roadmaps:

- Include input from product managers, developers, and executives.

- Avoid overcomplicating your roadmap.

- Prioritize both immediate and future needs.

-  Keep your roadmap current to reflect changes in priorities.

 Presenting and Utilizing Your Roadmap

Presenting and utilizing your best product roadmap effectively is crucial. After creating it, clear communication to stakeholders and its practical application are vital. Tailor your message when presenting it based on your audience, offering detailed features and timelines for internal teams and a higher-level overview for external stakeholders. Visual aids, like charts and graphics, enhance comprehension.

To utilize your roadmap, regularly reference it in planning meetings and reviews. Ensure it aligns with your product's current status and market conditions, using it to adapt to changes. The roadmap should guide resource allocation, prioritizing essential tasks. Keep in mind that your roadmap is a dynamic document; revisit and refine it regularly as your product evolves and new insights emerge. In summary, effective presentation and utilization of your roadmap align efforts and resources toward achieving your product's goals.

 Product Roadmap for Scrum Product Owners

A Scrum product roadmap prioritizes sprint planning and short-term goals, and it frequently spans a period of several months to a year. It prioritizes features based on customer feedback, market insights, and business objectives, ensuring that the Scrum team works on high-value items in each sprint. 

This prioritization is driven by customer feedback, market insights, and business objectives, ensuring that the Scrum team dedicates their efforts to high-value items during each sprint. Collaboration between the product owner and the development team is essential as they work together to refine and groom the backlog.

This iterative process allows for adjustments to accommodate changing priorities or emerging requirements. For Scrum Product Owners, having knowledge for a product roadmap is a vital tool.  This understanding fits in perfectly with Sprintzeal's CSPO Certification Training Program, which provides Product Owners with crucial knowledge and skills to succeed in their positions.

 The Future of Product Roadmaps

The future of product roadmaps holds exciting possibilities as technology and methodologies continue to evolve. We can anticipate several trends and developments shaping the way roadmaps are created and used.

Firstly, artificial intelligence and data analytics will play a more prominent role in roadmap planning, helping teams make data-driven decisions and predict market trends.

Secondly, the integration of roadmaps with agile and lean development methodologies will become even more seamless, allowing for quicker responses to changing requirements. Thirdly, the emphasis on user-centric design will lead to roadmaps that prioritize customer feedback and needs, resulting in more user-friendly and market-responsive products.

Additionally, the rise of remote work will demand improved collaboration and visualization tools within roadmaps. Finally, environmental sustainability concerns may lead to roadmaps that consider the ecological impact of product development.

In essence, the future of product roadmaps lies in their adaptability, responsiveness, and integration with evolving technologies and market dynamics, all aimed at delivering products that better meet customer needs while minimizing environmental impact.

Key Takeaways

In conclusion, the foundation of successful product management is a product roadmap. They act as dynamic leaders who help teams align, set priorities, promote transparency, and manage risks. Understanding different types of roadmaps and how to create them is key for successful product development. It's important to align your roadmap with your company's overall business goals to ensure your product contributes significantly to the company's success. Maintaining clear and open communication, both internally and externally, is crucial for transparency and gaining support from all parties involved.

The process of creating a roadmap requires using the proper tools flexible being in response to changing circumstances. Adopting these guidelines will help you move through the product development process with purpose and clarity. 

Start your journey towards becoming a Product owner today and discover the exciting possibilities in the world of product management.

Our comprehensive courses caters to everyone, whether you're just starting or have some experience. Reach out to our course expert if you need help or have questions. Subscribe to our newsletter for valuable tips and insights, helping you excel in product management.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I update my product roadmap?

Regular updates are essential, especially when priorities change or new information becomes available. Monthly or quarterly updates are common.

 What is the difference between a product roadmap and a project plan?

A product roadmap outlines the long-term vision and direction of a product, while a project plan focuses on the specific tasks and timelines required to complete a project.

 Can I use a product roadmap for non-software products?

Yes. Product roadmaps can be used for any product or project where long-term planning and communication are needed.

 How can I handle scope changes in my product roadmap?

Scope changes are common. Be prepared to re-prioritize and adjust to accommodate new requirements or insights.

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