Predictable innovation is one of the most harmful myths in product development. It leads to tons of frustration and subpar outcomes.
Road mapping is a usual PM activity. Depending on our organisation creating roadmaps could be more or less frustrating. We do that to provide ourselves, our stakeholders and sometimes our customers with clarity on what we will do in a particular order or timeframe.
Sounds simple enough, right? Why is it then there's so much pain around roadmaps in most product companies? A short answer: because people expect two incompatible outcomes - innovation and predictability.
Most product work is about innovation. Is about finding better ways to solve existing problems. Is about delighting customers like no one before. Yet all product businesses are businesses first and foremost. They need to know how much money they would spend and how much value they will get from spending it. Hence a conflict - businesses need innovation and predictability at the same time. Unfortunately, you can't have predictability and innovation at the same time. It's just not how things work.
Where do we get the roadmap analogy? From actual roads. If you know where you want to end up - the map is useful. However, if you want to explore, to find something new - you need to throw away the map and wander forward. It's similar to creating products - if you want something new or done in a new way, you can't really plan precisely how to get there. Product design and development is a creative process. And like any creative process, it's uncertain.
So what happens when you demand both innovation and predictability? Your teams will inevitably pick one even if pretending to aim for both. Depending on how incentives are handled in your company - people would rather stick with predictability or prioritise innovation.
In other words, if you will still push your people for an "innovative roadmap" these things will happen. You'll either get a roadmap that will be wrong or you will fail to innovate.
What can you do about this as a product leader?
First of all, accept the reality - you cannot have predictability and innovation at the same time. You will need to make a choice of what is more important for your business.Assign budgets and deadlines, not scope
If you'd like to innovate - there's one "no-no" you need to follow. Never tell your people what to do. They are the experts, you hired them because they are best at what they do. Share with them all available context and the goals - then let them do their thing.You can and should assign budgets and deadlines otherwise you risk just wasting money. You need to make it clear to your teams how much time and resources they have to innovate. When the budget is out - you will need to review the outcomes together with your teams and decide on the next steps. The success is not certain, it is never certain. You can still waste some or even all of your money. That's just inevitable. Yet, you can also get much more for your money than you would otherwise, trying to do things the predictable way.
Try impact-oriented roadmap
If you have to produce a roadmap - try making it about impacts, not features. Instead of putting the name of the feature or a particular solution on the roadmap, put something along the lines "We aim to make [a particular job] easier / cheaper / more enjoyable for [our customers].That way your customers will still get a general idea of what areas you'd try to innovate and you will retain some creative freedom of crafting the best possible solutions.
Set clearly the incentives
Incentives are key - if your people focus on "delivering against the roadmap", they will take the safest, known approach. They will inflate their effort estimates to create a breathing room for when unpredictable inevitably happens.If instead their focus is on innovating and they feel psychologically safe to pursue this difficult goal - you might get completely swept away by the creativity and craftsmanship, and the impacts to match.