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Why Every Digital Product Needs A Roadmap

 

A roadmap is an invaluable tool to help ensure the success of any digital product development.

A less experienced team may only see the tip of the iceberg: the 10% of the work and collaboration that they can easily imagine. As an experienced product manager, you know that it’s the 90% that is beneath the surface that will make or break your product launch.

That’s why every successful digital product launch starts with a visual roadmap. A comprehensive roadmap will always include clear definitions of each stage of development, critical milestones, key deliverables for each milestone, and acceptance criteria. The team will establish dates for each milestone and then iterate the roadmap to account for the inputs, review, work, and collaboration needed across departments. A typical roadmap will include detailed requirements for wireframes, mockups, marketing-ready clickable prototypes, and a minimum viable product or MVP.

What experienced product managers know: how to account for parallel paths, and how to show how the various work streams fit together and which depends on what. The visual aspect is invaluable when speaking with your marketing and sales departments as you negotiate product expectations, outcomes, and timelines that will enable all teams to align efforts for a successful launch.

The underlying value of a well-built roadmap goes beyond that all-important successful launch. A professional roadmap saves time, improves collaboration, and drives action. It focuses the efforts of a wide variety of stakeholders throughout the organization as well as outside vendors and partners. These stakeholders will need to come in and out of the project at different times with different levels of effort, each time. A clear, visual roadmap keeps the larger team aligned for success. We’ve all been there: new hires are added, people are promoted, others leave – a roadmap means continuity and a whole lot less of a learning curve for anyone new to the team. You can see the project at a glance and know precisely where the team is today, what’s been delivered, what’s coming up next, and who will be involved.

Need a fully fleshed-out roadmap? Talk to us. Our proven four pillars approach combines our knowledge of data, technology, business, and design to reduce your risk, maximize your return on investment, and accelerate time-to-market. Know that Boost Labs’ experienced product development team will never be the cheapest option. That said, we’ll go head-to-head with any other company, any day, on just how much value we can deliver.

If you have a product that must be launched successfully on the first try – or, if you’d just like to talk through a few ideas – reach out to us. We look forward to the conversation.

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