A Plan is not a Roadmap

Plan Definition: An orderly or step-by-step conception or proposal for accomplishing an objective.

A Product Roadmap might look like a plan, but it gets punched in the face too many times to be called a plan. In addition, it never has the details for tracking what actually needs to be worked on day in and day out, nor does it track daily work. It just lists & tracks objectives, sometimes just key objectives.

A product roadmap always shares and takes into account the vision of the product. From there, it defines why the product is needed, and at a high level (think features, not user stories) what will be built, and ideally should identify a few personas of users. This is to help identify who the product is being built for.

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If you liked this short post you might find this post useful: 5 Things You Need Before Building The Product Roadmap