Multi-Product Roadmap

CONTENTS

What is a multi-product roadmap?
Common multi-product roadmapping issues
How airfocus helps with multi-product roadmapping

What is a multi-product roadmap?

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Multi-product roadmap definition

A multi-product roadmap is a visual plan covering two or more products or initiatives within a company. As with a traditional roadmap that focuses on just one product, this is a strategic tool that outlines the purpose and direction of multiple products. It may also be referred to as “product portfolio roadmapping.”

Placing more than one product or initiative on a shared roadmap can be helpful when they have a clear connection. For example, their development may depend on the same resources or belong to the same product suite with similar functionalities.

Products and initiatives can still ultimately stand alone, yet share a roadmap to create a coherent overview of the development process. Roadmapping multiple products provides everyone involved in a project with a visual breakdown of the work required to achieve the objectives.

It’s a simple and convenient way to show the tasks undertaken by specific teams. Employees across different departments can coordinate their efforts more effectively and easily with a strong roadmap.

Here is a guide on Portfolio vs Product Roadmaps: When and How To Use Them, and our very own: Product portfolio roadmap template.

Common multi-product roadmapping issues

Managing multiple products with multiple roadmaps but no overview can cause several challenges. These include:

Lack of visibility across products

Dedicating one roadmap to one product may seem like a simple solution, but if products share resources or other important connections, it may make the development process more difficult than it should be.

When managing multiple products with their own roadmaps, teams need to switch from one roadmap to another to keep track of strategies and overall progress, leading to potential confusion and mistakes.

Dependency management conflicts

Dependency management is vital for product portfolio roadmapping, ensuring you can manage all interrelated resources and tasks effectively. It helps prevent clashes, oversights, and other disruptions that can cause delays.

Minimizing these issues will keep product portfolio planning on track and ensure all required resources are available. Managers are less likely to assign resources to one task at the expense of another. If the same team is working on multiple products, their schedules need to be carefully planned.

Ensuring strategic alignment

Without a multi-product roadmap, organizations may struggle to align a product or initiative with the overall strategy. Switching between multiple products on multiple roadmaps, with no detailed overview to refer to, will make it more difficult to achieve strategic alignment.

As a result, products may not match the initial vision driving their creation in the first place. Using a multi-product roadmap for product portfolio planning gives insight into how each product aligns with an organization’s strategic goals and needs, making it easy to identify and address any issues.

Maintaining flexibility for individual teams

When managing multiple products, teams will have different tasks, needs, and resources. Interdepartmental collaboration can be tricky, but it is essential for keeping things flexible. If resources can’t be diverted to different teams at different times, you’ll have a hard time keeping all products on track.

The overview offered by a multi-product roadmap helps multiple-product organizations be more flexible and allocate resources where they’re most needed.