The first thing that a product roadmap needa is a goal so I’d define the goal upfront. It helps answer – why are we looking at this roadmap?

Second, I would define the milestones. No product can be shipped with all features at a single date. You’re wasting too much time not getting customer feedback if this is the case. Hence, at a high level, I would define the milestones like internal dogfooding, private preview (select customers cab try), public preview (all customers can try) and GA (General availability).

Very rarely, each milestone has a specific goal and feature differences. Ideally, a feature progresses through each milestone with the same goal across all. However, if it’s a rare case (I’ve seen a couple), then I’d define the goals for each milestone separately.

Third, I would create a timeline view (other options are to create a Kanban board or a timeless view to show strategic importance of priorities) of the features

Lastly, I would note down the features that did not make the cut-line based on my prioritization criteria.

Divide your project into phases:

Phase 1 – Build the MVP Phase 2 – Iteratively improve the functionality of Phase I and add additional features for enhancement Phase 3 and so on … depending on the Product characteristics (H/W , S/W, etc.) will be dependent on customer feedback on the timeline and enhancements that go into the product phase.

I would use RICE model to determine the overall impact/reach of the product features, v/s internal capabilities and effort needed to create the MVP and subsequent iterations of the product.

Ideally a s/w product would take anywhere from 2-3 months for MVP launch and a hardware product would take 4-7 months depending on the complexity of the product features …

For a mature product, I would do the following –

1. Review the list of backlog items
2. Meet with stakeholders and business owners to verify the relevance (are they still valid? esp. for new feature request)
3. Break down the backlog list by a. Product improvements b. New features c. Operational Resiliency
4. Do a 70-30 split with New features+Product Imp =70%, Resiliency =30%
5. Prioritize by impact/scale and effort (team’s capacity) by quarter
6. Revisit Quarterly

For a new product –

1. Start with the product vision (what do customers need, what is our end goal)
2. Work with key stakeholders and business owners to put together a feature list
3. Define the list of features
4. Prioritize by impact/scale and effort (team’s capacity) by quarter
5. Revisit Quarterly