How do you influence the product roadmap from an annual perspective? What is the criteria for prioritization? (Think: Planning)

How far out your company or team should plan your roadmap, and the frequency with which you revise it, will depend on the maturity of your market and of your product. The more mature your market and/or product is, you ought to be able to make plans with a higher degree of certainty. In contrast, if you’re in an emerging space (as I am currently), you'll have more uncertainty as to the correct product strategy, especially the further you project into the future. This is because you’ll need to be rapidly experimenting, gathering feedback, and changing direction (eg, quarterly, monthly, or even semi-monthly) as your understanding of market and customer needs evolve.

But even if you’re in a mature market, you still need to analyze your roadmap on a regular basis. Occasionally, disruptive technologies completely change the game (eg, LLMs disrupting mature industries).

Regardless of which roadmap planning time horizon makes sense in your particular case, you should be considering the following inputs:

• Direct customer feedback: Customer calls you’re on or Gong recordings

• AE and SE input

• Win/loss reports

• Feature requests

• Analyst reports

• Your research team

• Competitor feature set comparisons

• Customer complaints on social media

• Relevant industry news

• And more...

While you may go through a more formal roadmap process prior to beginning a new fiscal year, your should engage with your PM regularly to analyze your product strengths, gaps, and areas of investment (eg, multiple times per month). Not only will this demonstrate that you are an expert and deserve a seat at the table, but it also ensure that you and your PM stay aligned.

Prioritizing which capabilities to build can be tricky. The obvious answer is that you should build whatever is going to drive the most revenue (eg, by increasing win rates, reducing churn, and/or increasing other revenue streams). But knowing what will actually deliver on those outcomes isn’t always obvious. Sometimes, teams may decide to prioritize what their loudest customer wants at the expense of delivering what most customers actually need–try to avoid this trap. That said, it can be hugely beneficial to develop design partnerships with engaged customers that you truly believe will grow with you as you meet more of their needs–all the better when meeting their needs also meets the needs of the masses.