When does it make sense to make your roadmap publically available, and what do you include (vs your internal roadmap)

Personally, I believe in having a very transparent roadmap. Not all companies are going to be able to communicate everything that is on their roadmap for legal and/or regulatory reasons, but, in my opinion, you should try to have as much of it public as possible. The main difference between an internal and external roadmap is that I would advise to never put exact dates on an external roadmap. If you have to put dates down, general timelines of this quarter, next quarter, this year, etc. are goo ...Read More

A public roadmap can serve as a tool to attract potential customers and increase the retention of existing customers by demonstrating that you are continually investing in the product and addressing their queries and concerns. There are Pros and Cons to having a public roadmap, and IMO the Pros needs to significantly outweigh the Cons, as the cost of maintaining this roadmap is not insignificant. Having an out of date roadmap could have an adverse impact so you can't afford to be misaligned in y ...Read More

I think public roadmaps make sense once you are post product market fit but it's important to remember to only lookout 6 months or so (with safe harbor for future usage/ purchasing statements). Once you are post GTM fit, then it makes sense to go further out to 12 months and provide dates for 6 month launches. I typically suggest including major product changes that the team is fairly (> 90%) confident on delivering along with separate comms on other smaller changes that might be relevant for ...Read More

My general rule is that you should only share projects with customers that you're at least 80% confident you're going to deliver in the timeframe you indicate. This could be even higher in an B2B SaaS company where customers might buy your product based on that roadmap. I'd therefore be very conservative on what you share publicly. You can share goals or strategies which are higher level that don't promise particular features but indicate the direction that you're going in. I find that usually d ...Read More

I might have given you a very different answer to this question a year ago! I used to be paranoid about hiding my roadmap from my competitors, and would share broadly internally and with customers to maximize feedback, yet lock it down for everyone else. GitLab is the most transparent company I've ever worked for, and for the most part our roadmap is on our public website available to anyone. I can't tell you how liberating it is to be talking to a customer who has an obscure question about an a ...Read More

I'm a big fan of publicly available roadmaps. They provide current and prospective customers with insight into where you plan to focus and serve as a great resource for Sales and Customer Success teams. Compared to internal roadmaps, the publicly available ones tend to have: Less specificity about when a particular feature is shipping (e.g., 'second half of this year' vs. June/July) Less detail on how the feature will work or how you plan to measure success Fewer technical specifics, focusing mo ...Read More

I am a huge fan of public roadmaps! But, I think this is depends on:  Organizational cultural preference  Mission of the company / product (are you building a product to help companies provide public roadmaps, for instance?) What industry you work in  If your product is open source or build products for developers Whether you serve B2C or B2B - or if your sales motion relies on product led growth While I my career has been almost exclusively B2B focused, I mostly see public roadmaps in B2B softw ...Read More

Since I have joined GitLab, where our product roadmaps are publicly accessible (https://about.gitlab.com/direction/), I don't think I will ever go back to internal roadmaps. A public roadmap as a number of benefits:  1. You keep everyone internal to the company aligned and up to date on what the product organization is building  2. You can encourage contribution (if you use open source) from the community or customers to help build your roadmap - delivering on a dual fly wheel mechanism  3. Redu ...Read More

There are three high-level options:  Internal roadmap only Fully public: roadmap published externally for all customers and prospects  Customer-facing roadmap that your Sales, Customer success, Sales Engineering and field teams are trained on to share   The choice of roadmap depends on your product category, type of customers you serve, and organization structure. For instance, developer-facing products typically prefer public roadmaps, while B2B has a stronger preference than B2C for external r ...Read More

Interesting question! From my experience, there are two key questions to answer when thinking about going public with your roadmap. 1) Do we have a predictable sprint velocity? 2) Do we have a predicate delivery rate? Once you have a predictable sprint velocity and predictable feature delivery, you have a high certainty that when you plan features, they will be delivered on time or close to when you expect. There is some degree of change and reprioritization that happens naturally with a roadmap ...Read More

Making your roadmap publicly available can be a good idea when: Sharing your roadmap publicly can build trust with your customers to show that you value their input and are committed to delivering features that align with their needs. You can set clear expectations regarding the features, bugs and enhancements that are in progress or planned. It can be an attractive selling point for potential customers. Customers can provide feedback, suggest enhancements, and even participate in discussions ab ...Read More

This is an interesting question, because I think it highly depends on the leadership and culture of the company you work in. I've seen leadership figures have very strong opinions on how much they want to publicly share about the roadmap, and it's anyone's guess as to whether it's to their benefit or detriment. Here's how I've thought about this before: - Your customers benefit from knowing your priorities and what you're building towards. Therefore, being public about mission, vision (to an ext ...Read More

I answered this partly in the earlier question “We’re pivoting our product, and it’s difficult to plan the roadmap too far out. How do we reset expectations on what product communicates?” TLDR is “it really depends on your company values/priorities and your product and community.” There are risks to sharing too much detail too early (failed follow-through can erode user community support and/or business partner/channel support). I personally like to optimize for customers, not competitive intell ...Read More

There are a few gradations of what public means in practice – i.e. 100% open (e.g. with rankings), partially open (narrative, but not prioritized), public to customers. I think it's always important to have a version that you can easily share with customers on demand, and most companies will want a partially open version unless they're in a hyper-competitive space, or stealth mode. For 100% open roadmaps, I think it depends on the stage of your product, how you acquire customers, and how competi ...Read More

Some companies do a great job in providing a public-facing roadmap. At one company I worked at, there used to be a Trello board where customers could add features, upvote, and see what was coming up. It was completely transparent. On the other hand I've worked at companies where we didn't publicly list anything. There are good reasons to do both. At smaller companies being transparent can help build community, engagement, and enthusiasm for your product. You are also at low risk of having bad pu ...Read More

I am a BIG proponent of having a version of the roadmap that can be shared externally! There are some tactical things you may need to do to ensure you can share and to make sure it is effective. These are my experience and yours will depend on your specific scenario including company size and industry, product, customer type, geography, etc. Confirm with internal stakeholders like legal and your product leadership that you can share a roadmap externally and if it is only for customers or for pro ...Read More

A public roadmap makes sense for open-source projects (like GitLab), developer tools, or products with an active, engaged community that values transparency. It should also align with the company’s values and commitment to openness. However, even in companies that share a public roadmap, some areas should remain internal, such as: • Security-related features or anything involving sensitive data that could be exploited. • Strategic, competitive differentiators—cutting-edge features that provide a ...Read More

Making a roadmap publicly available can build transparency and trust with customers, stakeholders, and partners. However, it's essential to carefully decide when and what to share. Here’s when it makes sense and how to differentiate a public roadmap from an internal one: When to Make a Roadmap Public Customer-Centric Industries: If you're in an industry where customer feedback is essential for product success, sharing a roadmap can demonstrate commitment to user needs and align expectations. Com ...Read More