Product road mapping is an art, one that requires a strong pulse on the state of the business, your customers and stakeholders. Road maps are meant to provide a clear path towards reaching the business objectives giving transparency and predictability to anyone involved on the team. But how often have you heard “Hey, we are agile, we don’t need a roadmap”; or the opposite “Hey, this feature was on the roadmap, but why haven’t you delivered?”. In this session, Angela Govila, former Product Manager at Capital One, talked about how to handle both of these situations and everything in between, by diving deep into the basics of how to conduct road mapping sessions.

1. What Are the Road Mapping Essentials by
former Capital One PM
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7. Angela Govila
TONIGHT’S SPEAKER

8. Essentials of Product
Roadmapping
By Angela Govila
March 2018

9. About the speaker
● Head of Product with Capital One’s Small Business Digital team
● Engagement Manager with Ernst & Young’s Strategic
Transformation Advisory team
● Program Manager with General Electric
● Side hustles
○ AI Enthusiast. Started a business focused meetup on AI.
○ Consulting on product management, agile transformation
and program management
○ Teach product management for UC Berkeley.
○ Podcast called Leadership Vibes dedicated to a candid
conversation on leadership, diversity and inclusion.
○ Speaking gigs on product management, women, tech.
○ Links:
■ Angelagovila.com
■ Leadership Vibes on Soundcloud and iTunes

10. angelagovila.com
WHAT’S COOKIN’!
● WIT Regatta - Panelist for
“Bleeding Edge Technologies”
● Converting AI business
strategy into action
● Driving Digital Transformation
● Leadership Vibes Podcast

11. Disclaimer!!!
POV presentation based on my experiences
Not representing any company or products mentioned in this presentation
YMMV - One size does not fit all
Case study with fictitious names and hypothetical examples
Hi everyone!
I am Samantha!
Vector Graphics by vecteezy.com

12. So why are you here….
● Unrealistic commitments
● No roadmap
● Roadmap changes often
● Poor business planning
● Limited trust - leads,
stakeholders, teams
● Unclear roles,
responsibility &
accountability
● Interaction models not
defined
Spreadsheet
hell!
● No central toolLack of
groomed runway
● No focus on product
launch needs
● Undisciplined agile
development
Images used under Creative Commons License

13. Typical product planning for small-ish teams
# of teams 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
How often
● Monthly, 1-2 hours each
● Regular cadence of information
distribution and problem solving
Agenda
1. Remind everyone of the vision
2. How do workstreams/pizza teams add
up to end to end delivery
3. Business metrics - KPI Dashboard
4. Roadmap per team / Collective view
Vector Graphics by vecteezy.com
Shared
Stakeholders
Engr
Manager
Product
manager
Designer Developer

14. Whoa! What do I for my teams?!
150 - 200
# of teams 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
● Geographies
● Time-zones
● Cultures
● Language
Shared
Stakeholder
s
Engr
Manager
Product
manager
Designer Developer Shared
Stakeholder
s
Engr
Manager
Product
manager
Designer Developer
Shared
Stakeholder
s
Engr
Manager
Product
manager
Designer Developer Shared
Stakeholder
s
Engr
Manager
Product
manager
Designer Developer
Vector Graphics by vecteezy.com

15. Dysfunctional teams and missed targets….
Images used under Creative Commons License

16. Mission
Epics/
Features
Goals
Business
Objectives
Vision
StoriesTasks
Key
Results
Start with this…..

17. And with this...
Declare 1 person as the driver
Have leadership support
Understand current release planning/mgmt process
Basic product canvas available
Declare which tools will be used

18. Wow! So many great tools!
Roadmunk Aha!
Lots of tools out there!
● Roadmap.space!
● Asana
● Casual.pm
● Craft
● ProdPad
● productboard
● ProductPlan
● Receptive
● SharpCloud
● OneDesk
Trello Basecamp JIRA

19. Tools are like diets…. find the one you can
stick with!

20. The Roadmapping Framework
Customer inputs
Market research, focus groups,
surveys, research studies
Stakeholder requests
Stakeholder name, Feature Name,
Description, Benefits, Expected
Time frame, Sprint team, Product
Manager
Alignment
Product Manager, Engr, Design -
feature understanding, sizing,
dependencies, timing, acceptance
criteria, estimates
Logistics
Location, food, room setup, agenda
creation

21. The Roadmapping Framework
What’s the day like?
● Ground Rules
● Senior leader presents on
mission/vision
● Business metrics
● Product managers walk
through roadmap
● Critical stakeholder updates
● Breakout sessions
○ Negotiations
○ Q&A
○ Revised roadmap
● Debrief on roadmap updates
● Recognition/Team Building

22. Ground Rules
● Laptops closed. Phones on silent. Come back
from breaks promptly.
● Respect the speaker. No sidebars outside the
room.
● Active participation but no derailment from
today’s goals.
● Participate in the conversation at the
breakouts. No surprises at the end!
● Decisions made by…..
● Expect to be called out for breaking the rules!
Goal of the day
Ensure teams, leads and stakeholders are in agreement on
the exact scope of work getting delivered from April - June
We will do so by
Following the ground rules
Respectful Candor, Collective Wisdom
Playing our role

23. What goes on the wall, board, projector….
Actual Roadmap
Depends on maturity of your program…...
Printed feature cards
Product Manager
Team
Feature Name
Description
Benefit
Requestor
Estimate
Dependency
PI/Sprint
Business Goal
KPI
FEATURE CARD
Product Manager : Samantha
Team : Wonder Woman
Feature Name : Introducing “1 Click” Privacy
Description: Ability for user to select in 1 click their
privacy settings across the platform
Benefit: 1) Transparency 2) Following the regulations
Requestor: Suzie from Compliance
Estimate: 3 sprints (6 weeks)
PI/Sprint : June (18.6)
Business Vision: Create a safer networked world
Business Goal: Provide customers with transparency of
their privacy settings
KPI : Increase user retention by 10%
Dependency: Brand, Legal, Enterprise team

24. The Roadmapping Framework
Strategic communications
● Roadmapping Wrap Up
● Roadmap Updates Email
● Release Preview / Demo
● Weekly / Monthly Dashboard
● Business reviews
● Newsletters
● Project update
● Etc

25. Essentials of Roadmapping
1. Agreement from cross functional leaders including product, engineering, design, marketing, analytics, risk,
legal, compliance etc to participate in roadmapping
2. Deliberately selecting who shows up in the room
3. Ensuring they understand their roles
4. Selecting a tool that causes least disruption
5. Being OK with things being awkward in the beginning
6. Declare 1 person as the lead
7. Having a strong team to run the day preparing advance and follow through after the session
8. Distribute roadmap very broadly
9. Use roadmapping as a team building event
10. Make it immersive such that it becomes privilege to be there

26. 5 secrets of success in product management
1. Have a diverse product team
2. Seek feedback constantly and fine tune
3. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
4. Preparation is key
5. You have more influence than you believe

27. 4 Question Survey
SURVEY LINK
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KDKHQ65

28. Q&A

29. Part-time Product Management Courses in
San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, New
York, Austin, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, Denver,
London, Toronto
www.productschool.com