Don’t Let Product Management Turn Into “The Roadmap Guys”

At many enterprise software companies product management (PM) ends up defaulting into a role that I can’t stand:  The Roadmap Guys*.

Like a restaurant with one item on the menu, the company defaults into ordering one thing from product management:  a roadmap pitch.

• “The VP of PM is in Boston and Providence this week, can she visit some customers and do a few roadmap presentations?”
• “Hey, there’s a local user group in NY this week; can PM do a roadmap pitch?”
• “There’s a big customer in the executive briefing center today; can the PM do a roadmap?”
• “As part of our sales cycle with prospect X, we’d love to get PM in to discuss the roadmap.”
• “We’ve got a SAS day with Gartner next week, can PM come in a present the roadmap?”

You hear it all the time.  And I hate it.  Why?

From a sales perspective, roadmap presentations are the anti-sales pitch:  a well organized presentation of all the things your products don’t do.  Great, let’s spend lots of time talking about that.

From a competitive perspective, you’re broadcasting your plans.  If you’re presenting roadmap to every prospect who comes through the briefing center and at every local user group meeting, your competition is going to learn your roadmap, and fast.  Then they can copy it and/or blunt it.

But what irks me the most is what happens from a product management perspective:  you turn PM into “the talking guys” instead of “the listening guys.”  Given enough time, PM starts to view itself as the folks who show up and pitch roadmaps.

But that’s not their job.

PM should be the listening folks, not the talking folks.  Just like sales, PM should remember the adage:  we have two ears and one mouth; use them in proportion.

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we changed the five previous bullets as follows?

• “The VP of PM is in Boston and Providence this week, can she visit some customers and observe how people actually use the product?”

• “Hey, there’s a local user group in NY this week; can PM break off a small focus group to ask customers about how they use the product?”

• “There’s a big customer in the executive briefing center today; can PM come in and interview them about their impressions on evaluating the product?”

• “As part of our sales cycle with prospect X, we’d love to get PM in to discuss what specifically they are trying to accomplish and how the product can do that?”

• “We’ve got a SAS day with Gartner next week, can PM come in and hear from Gartner about what they’re seeing in the market and in their interactions with customers?”

So every time you hear the word “roadmap” in the same sentence as “product management,” stop, pause, and think of a better way to use the PM team.  Sure, there are certainly times when a roadmap presentation is in order.  But don’t default to it.  Keep your PM team listening instead of talking.

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* I’m using “guys” here in a gender-neutral sense like “folks.”