You Will Always Need A Department Plan And A Roadmap. Build It!
There’s a lot of talk about AI changing everything.
It is changing many things, and it’s impacting how most Products are being built.
BUT this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a longer-term plan.
Strategy Success
Strategy is more important today than ever before.
Having a clear connective strategy is always critically important.
Those who are only tactical flip-flop and constantly chase chaos.
Why? Strategy sets the goals, it aligns “people and performance” and allows the business to know you’re on the right track.
Your roadmap will be the clearest sign to internal and external customers you are headed in a specific direction and will be something they get behind.
Product managers need focus, developers need focus, and leadership teams need to focus on Product and Product features. Even Marketers look for plans and roadmaps to succeed.
New Cadence?
Strategic pillars are going to be revisited, and yes, you’ll need more flexibility than before; however, we cannot scrap everything we have built organisations around for decades.
Reimagine and apply more flex, yes, rip it up and start over again, rarely ever works.
And often when it does work, we go back to how it worked previously.
Roadmaps are going to be critically important. Internally and externally.
You won’t drop everything on every AI release.
If you are, you’re always going to chase every update and always be reactive.
Reactive companies most frequently lose.
Matter!
Alignment matters
The right build(s) matter
Shaping the future and educating your users matter
Goals and financial outcomes are shaped around Product, Sales and Marketing…roadmaps matter.
Roadmap Reshuffle
Annual roadmaps are likely out; however, you need to have a Product steer and a set of building goals a year out is always going to be important.
The roadmap will likely be bi-annual. I predict every quarter you will want to revisit, and unless you have built on a model that is completely rewritten, you shouldn’t need to worry about every update.
And if there is a huge update, you can dissect it and then work it into your plans.
Some companies may even switch to 6 deployment week’s cycles.
Roadmaps are about outcomes and success stories.
Releases and features only matter if they improve the user experience and improve your business metrics.
Focus On Your Business
Competitors will say they are building things quickly, they might even say they don’t have Product management anymore, nor do they have concrete roadmaps. Great, that's them…
They will seem like they are releasing important features, but in this market, the companies that win will have clarity, it will be hyper-focused, likely mostly user-focused, and it will solve problems by teaching the user about the change, why the change and how to be successful with it.
In the AI world, most companies have forgotten what's important.
Your product has to be:
Easy to learn
Easy to use
Easy to share
Easy to personalise
Be Accountable
The hard truth is you will be asked to be accountable, you will be asked to show your tactical and strategic thinking and without a roadmap, a plan to show you know how to shape the future and be successful, you will lose credibility and please connect with your cross-functional peers and colleagues, get them on the journey and connect their campaigns and projects.
Wondering why I wrote this? AI has shaken so many professionals and many department leaders are struggling. I have had this conversation a number of times and know many people need to hear this.
I coach Growth, Marketing and Product leaders - read my coaching testimonals
