How does your approach to influencing a 3 year product vision vs. next quarter or next year's product roadmap differ?

Maybe unpopular opinion, but I let the product team and CPO lead the 3-year product vision (though provide input if asked based on what I know about the market and competitors), and I focus my attention on the next quarter/year. Things change ALL the time, and my product marketing support relies on the suggest of the releases coming in the next year.but some things to think about here: 3 year vision: what are the long-term company goals (IPO? go public? fund raise?), industry trends, and emergin ...Read More

For longer term roadmaps (a year out), I think about how to grow the company’s TAM. What are potential new personas, industries, or use cases we’re already seeing organic traction in and could build on if we had supporting product functionality? For a quarterly roadmap, I think about how I can influence the highest impact products already on the roadmap. Here’s a template you can use to identify opportunities to add value throughout the product development process. Quite honestly I haven’t been ...Read More

I find that the key difference between influencing a 3 year product vision vs. features for the next quarter are about the precision / availability of information. The next quarter can typically be assessed pretty clearly. You can talk to customers / do research into what their needs are now and you can often make some predictions about what the benefit will be addressing that need.  When influencing a long-term product strategy, you often have to identify static needs / jobs to be done for a cl ...Read More

I dont actually think my approach changes. I tend to believe that the process will yield results and my process to influencing roadmap focuses on acting (in my head) like I'm the owner of my product: what users use my product? what are they thinking/feeling as they go through the journey to understand and ultimately use my product? is there a known gap in terms of what would make them use more of the product?  is there a common denominator that is driving either upside or downside for the produc ...Read More

The closer you are to the product launch, the more tactical the PMM has to be in influencing the roadmap. Products that are coming out in a quarter are close to being built (if not already built) and have very little room for adjustment. If Product Marketers are only being brought in at this stage, the PMM's primary way to influence the roadmap is to work with Product to define launch success metrics and provide feedback post-launch on what did or did not work. This will help with future iterati ...Read More