Roadmap Planning

Create realistic, time-phased roadmaps that align with your business goals.

What is a Product Roadmap

A product roadmap is a strategic plan that shows which features will be built and when they will be released. It helps align your team and stakeholders on priorities and timelines.

Roadmap Phases

AI Product Manager typically generates roadmaps with 3-4 phases:

MVP Phase (4-8 weeks)

Core features needed to launch and validate product-market fit

Phase 2 (2-3 months)

Secondary features that expand market reach and user engagement

Phase 3 (3-6 months)

Advanced features and integrations for enterprise adoption

Future Vision

Long-term goals and emerging opportunities

Creating an Effective Roadmap

1. Identify Your Business Goals

What do you want to achieve? Revenue targets? User growth? Market share?

2. Prioritize Features

Which features are critical for launch? Which can wait? Use frameworks like RICE scoring.

3. Estimate Effort

Work with your engineering team to estimate development time for each feature.

4. Consider Dependencies

Some features depend on others. Order them logically to avoid blockers.

5. Build in Buffer Time

Add 20-30% buffer for unknown issues and pivots.

Roadmap Best Practices

  • Keep the MVP focused - include only essential features
  • Be realistic about timelines - underestimate is worse than overestimate
  • Include time for QA and bug fixes (usually 20-30% of total time)
  • Plan for infrastructure and devops setup upfront
  • Review quarterly and adjust based on learnings

Customizing Your Roadmap

After generation, you can adjust:

  • Phase durations based on your team size and velocity
  • Feature priorities to match business strategy
  • Merge or split phases based on dependencies
  • Add parallel workstreams for large teams
  • Include milestones and external dependencies

Timeline Estimation Tips

Simple feature: 1-2 weeks | Complex feature: 4-8 weeks

Account for onboarding time for new team members

Plan for integration testing at the end of each phase

Reserve time for documentation and knowledge sharing

Next Steps

Once your roadmap is defined, generate detailed development tasks:

→ Task Generation Guide

Ask me to learn more...