What does the handover process look like between PM/PMM for your product roadmap?

Building on an earlier question, for a longer term roadmap (6-12 months out), I would get ahead of product’s planning process. One way PMM has been able to add value at Gong is by conducting market research ahead of half-yearly and annual planning.

For shorter term influence, I would work in lockstep with your PM early in the product discovery process. Here’s a template you can use to find opportunities to add value throughout the product development process.

When I look at an external product roadmap, I see it as a coordinated effort where the product marketing team is accountable for delivering the roadmap, but the product team is responsible for providing the key building blocks of information that build it.

Product marketing is responsible for

• Crafting the narrative: Your roadmap should thematically address how you are recognizing and serving your customers' top problems in a meaningful way

• Building the template focused on customer centricity: Ensure that the launches you have planned are oriented towards customer value, not speeds and feeds

• "Externalizing" the story: Scrubbing any information on products to ensure they are external friendly which might mean changing the language

• Managing the reality of your product launch timing: In rare situations, you'll have a product team that is extremely good at hitting their projected launch timing. Otherwise, it might behoove you to offer a bit of buffer on the launch timing in public roadmaps to make sure that you're able to hit your delivery goals.

• Creative polish: Make sure your roadmap looks good and reflects your brand

Product management is responsible for

• Setting realistic launch timing: Identifying rational delivery dates based on conversations with technical teams, and then holding the team accountable to it.

• Articulating value: Framing the launch in terms of the customer value. How does improving capabilities, or reliability, or delivering a new feature make a customer achieve their goals?

• Technical details: Clarifying exactly what the launch is.

• Visual assets: Depending on your team, this might be a shared responsibility from PM to PMM to even UXR or another organization. If your roadmap includes visuals, they should come through a product team to ensure they accurately showcase what is coming.

The ideal scenario is a series of ownership handoffs that pass the roadmap between PMM and PM until delivery:

• PMM will kickoff the roadmap process

• PM will input the necessary information

• PMM will refine the story and externalize information as needed

• PM will validate any reframes

• PMM will finalize the creative

• PM/PMM will collaborate to do any trainings needed for the roadmap

I don't view this part of the puzzle as an assembly line. I view the roadmap as a living organism that is nurtured by both teams. With this in mind - how we fuel the roadmap is determined by how we spend our calories and codification of information for PM.

A more direct answer could be:

• Sharing of market insights 1:1 in PM<>PMM syncs.

• Organizing a quarterly round-up of feedback to inform Product showcases/roadmap decisions.

• Creating channels that serve as a feed of insights: listening loops

• Sharing gong calls / trends of reports

Agnostic of the tactic - your job is to tie it back to the why and business case for the market.

One of my single most important learnings is that as a PMM you need to know when and how PM makes funding decisions. For example, at LinkedIn, our Product team does semi-annual planning, and funding decisions for the half are made roughly 1 month prior to the start of the next half. As a PMM, this means I need to gather my data-driven customer learnings and product roadmap recommendations at least a couple months prior to funding decisions. I need to ensure our findings and recs are simply but thoroughly documented. I want to get these docs in PM's hands before they start drafting their funding proposals for the half, so my team's ideas are more likely to be used as sources of truth in funding decision-making. Lastly, I need my team to attend the live planning meetings where PM, Engineering, Design, and Strategy present their fundings plans and decide what's finally above or below the cutline.