Why Your Product Roadmap Needs the Right Investment Mix
This article first appeared in Medium.
As we begin Q4, most companies are looking back at what was (and was not) accomplished while also looking ahead at the next 1–3 years. There might be a sense of urgency to “get caught up” on all of the roadmap items, OKRs, and outcomes that were promised (or assumed) but not yet delivered. Simultaneously, companies are also trying to think long-range and big picture in the year(s) ahead. If you’re reading this article, you have probably experienced this very problem (or are in the middle of it now!). However, now is a great time to step back and think about your product (or portfolio) roadmap investment mix for both the short-term and long-term time horizons.
Your product roadmap is more than just a list of prioritized features; it’s a strategic tool that guides the future of your product. The investment mix in your roadmap ensures resources are allocated across various feature types to achieve your company’s — and your customer’s — short-term needs and your long-term vision. I previously wrote about leveraging your product strategy to bridge the company mission and vision and your product roadmap. In this article, we will explore the concept of product investment mix.
The Three Pillars of Product Roadmap Investments
Getting caught up on just trying to deliver can be really easy. Even if you are disciplined enough to emphasize outcomes over output, you may not be thinking intentionally about how you invest your resources (i.e., product teams of developers, designers, etc.). However, it is critical — especially for sustained, long-term success — to consider the mix of “bets” you’re placing on your roadmap.
Balancing innovative, performance-enhancing, and table-stakes features is crucial for staying competitive and maintaining customer satisfaction. Each category is valuable in its own right and serves a purpose regarding your roadmap and company/customer needs. Let’s briefly define each of these informal categories.
Innovative features, often referred to as “delight” features, surprise and engage users, offering a competitive edge that differentiates your product.
Performance and user experience improvements don’t stand out as much as innovation, but they are essential for retaining users and improving satisfaction.
Table stakes, or expected features, represent the basic functionality or necessary fixes that ensure your product meets the minimum user expectations.
Each of these pillars can have different names and be defined in various ways (as I will demonstrate below). The point is that multiple categories make up the investment mix of your roadmap. There are many frameworks out there that you can use to organize your roadmap investments. These frameworks are typically leveraged then as part of a prioritization process. Some of the more well-known frameworks include the Kano Model, Value vs. Effort, and the 3 Horizons framework, just to name a few. We will take a closer look at each of these frameworks, but by no means is this an exhaustive list or an endorsement of these frameworks over others out there.
Using the Kano Model to Understand Customer Satisfaction
The Kano model is a framework that has been around since the 1980s, developed by Noriaki Kano for product development and mapping (anticipated) customer satisfaction. The Kano model helps product managers and developers understand which features will significantly impact customer satisfaction, allowing for more strategic product development decisions. The model buckets features/functionality into three categories:
Basic Needs: These are features customers expect and take for granted. Their presence doesn’t increase satisfaction, but their absence causes significant dissatisfaction.
Performance Needs: These features have a linear relationship with customer satisfaction; the better they are, the more satisfied customers become. However, their absence or poor performance leads to dissatisfaction.
Delighter Attributes: These are unexpected features — often considered innovative — that delight customers when present. Their absence doesn’t cause dissatisfaction since customers don’t expect them, and they often provide a competitive edge as a differentiator.
One thing to note with the Kano model is that it is intended to get actual user feedback — meaning you would survey customers regularly to understand where potential features fall. Having said that, I’ve seen most product teams more or less “eyeball” where a feature may land on this model without direct or formal user feedback as input. Ideally, you would get user input if you’re using the Kano model, but either way, this helps you think through how you prioritize your roadmap. There is no one right mix for what percentage of your resources should go towards each category at any given time. However, you should consider the mix and how that evolves.
Leveraging the Value vs. Effort Matrix for Prioritization
The Value vs. Effort Matrix prioritizes features or tasks based on their potential value and the effort required to implement them. It’s a slightly different way to look at prioritization than the Kano model. Where the Kano model heavily emphasizes the customer POV, the Value Matrix emphasizes business value (which, of course, indirectly embeds customer value).
Quick/Easy Wins, or features that deliver high value with minimal effort, provide immediate benefits to users with limited resources.
Big bets, while high-effort, are high-value innovations that can dramatically shift the market and position your product as an industry leader.
Incremental wins deliver minor improvements but for low investment. You don’t want to invest heavily in this space.
Money pit initiatives, to state the obvious, should always be avoided as they will deliver low value for high cost.
In this framework, you will want to balance the quick, easy wins with the significant, strategic investments (i.e. Big Bets). You can also sprinkle in the occasional “incremental” improvement, but clearly, you want to focus on the top half of the matrix to ensure your roadmap delivers both quick gains and long-term value while maximizing your product team’s effort.
Adding Long-Term Vision: The 3 Horizons Framework
Created by McKinsey & Company, the 3 Horizons Framework is yet another lens for categorizing roadmap investments across short-term needs, medium-term growth opportunities, and long-term innovations. Similar to the Value vs. Effort Matrix, this framework takes a business-centric POV (with customer needs/value embedded).
Horizon 1 focuses on immediate improvements and core features that sustain your current product, often aligning with table stakes and performance features.
Horizon 2 identifies emerging opportunities and mid-term innovations that help your product grow, reflecting performance and innovative feature investments.
Horizon 3 is where future disruptors lie, encouraging investment in visionary, innovative features that may not pay off today but are critical for long-term success.
Again, the goal here is to look at your roadmap objectively to ensure you appropriately diversify how you are investing in your product development. The exact mix needs to be specific to your company’s situation, but the general rule of thumb I’ve seen applied to this framework is 70% on your core business (Horizon 1), 20% on Horizon 2 initiatives, and 10% for long-term Horizon 3 investments.
Focus on the Present, Keep an Eye on the Future and Continuously Adjust
Product roadmaps need to be dynamic, and your investment mix needs regular reevaluation to align with ever-evolving market conditions and customer expectations. Over time, features that once delighted customers may shift into the “expected” category, requiring you to adjust your priorities continually (and perhaps adjust your urgency as well). Customer feedback, competitor actions, and technological advances are just a few factors that necessitate revisiting and adjusting your roadmap investment mix.
As with any framework, the exact one you use does not matter. And you could even use a combination of these. What matters is that you match the tool with the situation/context of your company. A well-balanced roadmap ensures your product evolves to meet user needs while positioning you for future growth and differentiation. By being intentional with how you are building out your roadmap, you will ensure your product — and your company — remains competitive with the core business. Equally important (and more challenging to focus on) is placing long-term bets to help position you for a future you cannot entirely predict.
