[Music] hey guys i am eric from invensis learning and i welcome you to our youtube channel in this tutorial session we are going to learn key concepts of product management in detail before we get started let us quickly go through the agenda as you can see on the screen we will begin by knowing a little bit about the history of product management then we will discuss what exactly is a product and the concept of product management post that we will discuss who exactly is a product manager in different types of product managers moving on we will talk about the importance of product management product management life cycle and roles involved in product management then we will discuss how a career in product management looks like and the job roles that you can take up finally we will conclude this session by learning how to create a product roadmap using the roadmonk tool hope the agenda is clear to you guys let's get started then currently one of the most celebrated lingo for tech businesses is product management if someone traces back 50 years of the business timeline the term product management was nowhere in the picture so what's the story here it's hard to imagine a modern day tech company that does not have a product manager but the questions that often rolls out is what is the history behind product management the origin it may seem like product management is a natural result of the digital era but in reality the role has a rich and varied history that charts its course all the way back from the 1930s way back in 1931. yep almost a century ago neil h mcelroy a marketing manager at well-known u.s brand proctor and gamble wrote a simple memo expressing the need to hire more people his 800-word memo was a simple and concise description of brand man and their absolute responsibilities according to the memo a so-called brand man was responsible for tracking sales to managing the product advertising and promotions sounds like a familiar job description doesn't it neil's great insight was to take product responsibilities distributed amongst different departments and consolidate them into a single job the brand manager anyway mcelroy later became secretary of defense and helped found nasa mcelroy's influence over the modern business world didn't end with his memo in the late 1930s he became a valued influencer for young entrepreneurs bill hewlett and david packard who absorbed mcelroy's concept of the brand man and took it to the next level they brought the decision-making closer to the customer by creating a product group for each deliverable each product group is an autonomous self-sustaining entity responsible for conceptualizing producing and marketing its products this helped them to set an unbroken 50-year growth record of 20 year-over-year from 1943 to 1993. meanwhile in post-war japan 1953 the global car brand toyota was experimenting with ways to streamline the production process their aim was to get the product from the drawing board to the customer even faster the result of this experimentation was just in time manufacturing and two other important principles any modern product manager will recognize kaizen incremental improvement through innovation and genki jinbutsu to go to the source to find the facts to make correct decisions these concepts slowly made their way across to the west and hp was one of the first to recognize its value and embrace it this brought to a new way of thinking customer-centric brand vertical and lean manufacturing into the picture the tech transition when product management came to tech the original product managers and indeed the majority of product managers in fmcg today were very much a part of the marketing function by that i mean their key metrics were marketing sales and profit generation at the end of the 20th century there were a lot of innovations in technology in the software business as the role moved into the tech world however existing knowledge gap of tech innovations and lack of market application widened most of the newfangled companies in the tech world were inventing whole new industries and they couldn't just rely on packaging and pricing of a commodity to succeed this brought product development back to the center of the product management role the agile move at first the integration of product management with product development stalled for both tech and non-tech organizations product development then was a slow and laborious process it involved market research then writing a massive product requirements document then throwing it over the wall to engineering to build only to get something completely different out the other end several months later before starting the process all over again before this could tire out the product developer agile's manifesto came into picture the agile manifesto not only freed up software engineers from tedious processes but it also freed up product management from focusing on deliverables like specs to focusing on customer collaboration over time product management has matured in these days it is increasingly a standalone function with a seat at the management table and reporting directly to the ceo product management is an ever evolving field and it stands on the shoulders of giants so it might be a little late to ask this question but what exactly is a product according to you a product is simply any good or service or even an idea that can be offered to a market to satisfy a customer's need or want this definition might seem simple but there is a lot more to a product than it's at first glance attributes and what the customer thinks they are paying for a product can be something physical like a table it can be a digital product such as microsoft office an ebook or streaming videos it also can be a service like consulting on how to adopt agile also a product can even just be an idea for example a patentable algorithm or the secret to getting more likes on facebook thus the definition of product leads us to a broad range of things a car a phone and a coffee can be a product but so can a trip to paris and advice from your doctor so let us begin with a question that all of us have been thinking about what is product management product management is quite difficult to define that's because it does not fit with any of the traditional roles that you might be familiar with design engineering business strategy or marketing instead product management just draws from all of these fields forming a new discipline the main objective of product management is the development of a new product its ultimate goal is making sure you're building the right product and building the product right every product has its own goals and challenges which require a unique and customized approach to product management martin erickson product leader extraordinaire and founder of product tank has famously described product management as the intersection of business user experience and technology what do these terms mean actually business here product management helps teams achieve their business goals and objectives by bridging the communication gap between design dev team the customer and the business itself next the ux product management focuses on the user experience and represents the customer inside the organization great ux is how this focus manifests itself into an amazing product technology product management happens day to day in the engineering department a thorough understanding of computer science is paramount so through product management you align these three functions to basically ensure that your customer gets the product that he or she wants at the same time you meet your business strategy so who does all these things a product manager product managers are the glue that binds the many functions that touch a product engineering design customer success sales marketing operations finance legal and more they not only own the decisions about what gets built but also influence every aspect of how it gets built and launched let me explain that by taking a travel app as a product for example there's probably a product manager who is responsible for the few features of the products such as user profile management search system booking and payment the product manager would begin with extensive research to learn about the company's market user personas and competitors next he or she would shape the industry knowledge they've learned into a high-level strategic plan for their product well this can include their goals objectives a broad overview of the product itself and maybe a rough timeline as well the product owner then would present his plan using a roadmap across the organization it can include executives investors their development team and other concerned stakeholders next assuming that they have received a green light to move forward the product owner would coordinate with relevant teams such as product marketing development sales etc to begin executing the plan once the product is built tested and released to the marketplace the product owner keeps monitoring the performance of the product and collects feedback from the customers after a discussion with concerned parties the feedback would be implemented in the next release if you've been looking at product manager jobs you might have seen a few variations of the title we have a technical product manager a tpm is like a normal pm but who has a strong technical background perhaps they transition to product from engineering while most of their actual duties will be identical to a non-technical product manager they'll be able to lend more of their skills to the engineering team and have a more hands-on role then we have a product marketing manager a lot of product managers come from marketing backgrounds and it's useful for any pm to have some kind of basic marketing knowledge as a product marketing manager less involved in how the product is built and will probably spend less time with engineers working out bugs and roadmaps the day-to-day activities usually include creating case studies web content press briefings product testing and managing the overall marketing team moving on we have a business product manager this type of product manager is well versed in terminologies of business operations and finance these are good thinkers and are able to paint and see the big picture to lead teams they do have a pitfall not understanding technology or design very well can lead to conflicts and it takes hard work to build credibility with designers and coders then there is the growth product manager growth product managers have been on the rise in the last five years they earn about 108 992 dollars in the united states they focus less on the life of on product and more on improving a certain business metric while all pms keep their goals in line with those of the business as a whole this will be a growth pm's primary focus they could focus on any stage of the product life cycle lastly we have a data project manager data product manager is equipped with good analytical abilities and can help the entire team understand business sales and product equally well they are pretty good at reading and finding patterns in data and since data is the key to decision making in most meetings these days they gain influence within many teams over time so by any means this list is not exhaustive there are many other types of product managers out there so i hope this gave you a rough picture of what goes into product management and how product development is also a part of it cool so let me answer the questions that you might be wondering till now why do we even need product management in the first place what are the benefits firstly product management helps understand the customer requirements it is the voice of the market inside the company the market consists of customers and non-customers buyers and users at companies and target market segments it helps engaging the changing needs of customers this deep involvement with clients enables them to provide timely feedback to the development team about the existing products this leads to an improvement in product features with increased customer satisfaction scandal product management is required to implement business strategy while also playing the role of market advocate the team must assure that ideas implemented are in alignment with the overall corporate strategy thereby product management guides the company on how to invest its limited resources to deliver competitive products that are in line with market needs and then works with other teams to better enable them to help the company reach business goals next up product management is required to develop an adequate business model like i already mentioned earlier a go-to-market strategy is a critical element for ensuring the product's success in this competitive market product managers also help create the right business model for getting a good return on investment throughout the product's life cycle fourthly product management helps the company focus simply any misalignment of market product or strategy will result in less than optimal profits for the company in maintaining this alignment product management helps keep the company focused avoiding shiny objects that may appear to be good opportunities but in fact are distractions product management cuts through the noise of hundreds of great ideas and customer requests to guide the organization down a path that results in maximized revenue at a minimized cost lastly product management acts as a hub of product and market information for sales marketing development support finance management and other parts of the company this way each department develops its own perception of market reality product capabilities and product portfolio direction product managers are expected to be able to effectively communicate with all of these distinct internal groups while also getting out of the office to work with customers partners and other parties the next question that pops up here is why do we even need an effective approach to manage a product firstly because you need to build the right product or products you see every product begins with an idea and often you might have more ideas for products than you can possibly find during such scenarios product management will help you and your team can focus on prioritizing the ideas for potential products so that you can focus on the ones that will provide the most value to your organization secondly you need product management to stop building the wrong products as i briefly mentioned earlier the product manager continuously monitors the work of development teams ongoing experiments and even existing solutions that are running in production to figure out their effectiveness if your product is not as effective as you think then you can either evolve it or cancel it to focus on high-value products thirdly product management helps you to release the right products at the right time when multiple delivery teams are working in parallel functional dependencies can crop up between the products that are being worked on in such cases product management will help you to consider these dependencies when the work is being prioritized that way the right functionality is available when it is needed lastly product management will help ensure that people are using the product part of product management is marketing to potential end users if people don't know that functionality is available to them then they are unlikely to use or buy it great so now you know what exactly is product management and why it is important now let us learn about the product management life cycle but before we jump into that there are certain key terms related to product management that you might come across in the rest of the session the first term that we have is minimum viable product or mvp it is a minimal version of a new product that is created with the least amount of risk and effort possible mvps are used to run experiments to explore a hypothesis about what your customers really want a development team typically deploys an mvp to a subset of your customers to test a new idea to collect data about it and thereby learn from it m refers to the minimum the most basic and rudimentary foundation of the solution possible v refers to viable solution or product that is sufficient enough for early adoptions lastly p for the product which is something that tangible that customers can touch and feel for example in travel guide app the mvp features would be user profile management which includes user registration login and geolocation then there is a search system that has various filters based on which users can search for rooms places etc then there's booking payment and review and recommendations next we have a minimum business increment mbi it is the smallest releasable piece of functionality that makes sense from a business perspective it adds value for your customers and provides valuable feedback to the product team that the right functionality is being built and is being built in the right way then we have mmf which refers to the minimum marketable feature it is the smallest fully functional feature that provides real value to the customer lastly we have the minimum marketable release or mmr successful products are deployed incrementally into the marketplace over time each of these major deployments are referred to as a release an mmr is the release of a product that has the smallest possible feature set that addresses the current needs of your customers that's it now let us move on to the product management life cycle by product management lifecycle i mean process companies typically use to develop launch and manage products any business can use it to analyze and improve the process of developing and selling its products also the activities in these different stages are carried out by people in different parts of the organization working closely together product management is leading or heavily involved in all of the steps the whole process of product management involves vision development customer understanding strategy development product development marketing and sales metrics tracking each of the stages may include inbound and outbound activities inbound product management activities include market research industry trends and competitive analysis as well as the overall strategy and product roadmap outbound product management on the other hand focuses on product marketing branding messaging positioning product launches pr advertising etc product manager doesn't perform all activities but rather supervises their fulfillment the first step is to develop a vision in this step you generate and collate new ideas prioritize the ones that look most interesting and come up with what the customer proposition might be then come up with a vision for your product you should know that product vision is a significant part of product management a vision basically defines the final product and shows the direction towards achieving it when developing the vision a product manager sets the goals for the product and defined specifications a well specified product vision answers the following questions what is the user persona personas for the product which problems will the product solve how can we measure the success of the product here's a sample product vision template there is no fixed format as such as you can see we have multiple points being covered the next step is market research and customer understanding market research is a process of information collection and analysis of the market and its present or potential customers in this step you are comparing similar products that already exist studying the competition and identifying target customer groups obviously knowing your customer is a basis for creating a successful product here the product owner comes up with the different ways to conduct various research to get a deep understanding of potential product consumers for example you can create user personas study customer behavior identify customer needs conduct surveys and many such things the next step is strategy development by now you already have the vision know the market and understand customers needs the next step is to create a specific product strategy while a vision defines the goals for a product strategy describes a way to achieve them and sets main milestones this must be a clear and realistic plan for the team that works on a product your product strategy should define the main features of a product users and their needs and key performance indicators kpis that the product must meet so product strategy is typically documented in a written roadmap which is communicated with all the related stakeholders now you might be wondering what exactly is a product roadmap right roadmap is a visual summary of the vision spread across a period of time and it brings to light the data-led planning that makes product development and management so effective a good roadmap is clear and serves as a visual guideline for all members of the team when the strategy is ready the product manager has to communicate it to the product team and the stakeholders he or she has to be focused on customers and stakeholders at the same time then we have the product development stage during the execution stage a product team works on the product itself so the development team builds a new product or adds new features to an existing one the main phases of this stage are product development internal and external testing and the application of feedback results in this step a product manager controls the implementation of the roadmap and participates in accompanying activities product development this step starts with defining technical specifications making first prototypes and a mock-up design the product manager's main goal is to identify what the users want and communicate this information to the development team and project manager mvp release and external testing one of the core responsibilities of a product manager is to define the minimum viable product mvp and make sure it serves its purpose once the mvp features are released a product manager sets up a feedback collection mechanism gathers the feedback and alters product requirements based on user input as for testing ab testing is one of the most common evaluation techniques the main idea behind the practice is to choose the product features that are more useful to the customers or enable higher customer engagement the next step is marketing and sales once the product is completed it's time for it to enter the market in this stage the company prepares for launch by running trials finalizing the proposition and making sure the company is ready to sell the product the three important aspects of a successful product launch which are building customer awareness defining pricing strategy and choosing the most effective release timing through the whole process the product manager monitors the response for the product and delivers an operating plan which aims to track the growth of a product in the market the last step is tracking product metrics in this step after the product launch the product manager monitors its progression and analyzes data to understand the success of a product these metrics can be organized into several main groups the financial metrics for identifying revenue metrics reflecting user engagement metrics demonstrating user interest metrics that measure the product popularity metrics showing user satisfaction there are many other metrics apart from these what matters is the further analysis and the valuable insights that can be obtained from data that influence decision making that's it so this is how a typical product management process looks like now let us talk about the people involved in product development the first role that comes to mind when you think of product management as product manager in small companies the product manager is likely to be a jack of all trades with a broad range of responsibilities including marketing pricing and even sales but that's not the case with big companies in mature and bigger companies the roles are usually more distinctly defined and have narrower function scope there are lots of different job titles that focus on product related activities the most common ones are a product manager a product owner and a product marketing manager product development can also be influenced by stakeholders and besides that there's also a business analyst all of these roles have their own responsibilities let's begin with the product manager a product manager is an individual who identifies the customer needs and the business objectives that a product or feature will fulfill he will have an understanding of what success looks like for a product and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality the responsibilities of a product manager are more of a high level compared to that of a project manager this means setting a product vision coming up with an awesome product strategy and developing a roadmap that meets user needs and company goals in addition to these other responsibilities of a successful product manager spans from strategic objectives to tactical activities including understanding the user requirements and needs researching market trends and identifying new opportunities providing cross-functional leadership prioritizing features and capabilities of a product keeping everyone informed and communicating progress against product roadmap planning timelines and allocating project resources creating and maintaining profits and loss documentation let us learn more about the product manager a little later next up we have a product owner product owner and product manager are often used interchangeably but they are indeed different the role of a product owner comes from scrum an agile framework for developing solutions for complex problems a product owner is an individual responsible for maximizing the products value created by the development team they transform the high-level product vision developed by the product managers into detailed user stories or requirements the most important tasks of a product owner include formulating project goals and effectively plan work activities developing and managing the product backlog overseeing the product development at various stages acting as liaison between the client and the product development team balancing the scope time and budget constraints ensure transparency into the upcoming work of the product development team communicating with stakeholders you'll be most likely to find product owners at companies that implement the agile approach to develop digital products let's quickly learn how these two roles are different from each other there is a fine line between a product manager and a product owner role and it depends on how the role is crystallized in the company's structure and culture let's discuss the subtle differences between these two roles the product manager is mainly responsible for setting up the high-level product vision and coming up with a product strategy on the other hand the product owner is responsible for helping the development team to execute the high-level vision shared by the product manager product managers have a profound knowledge of the product the market and customers on the flip side the product owner is considered a lifeline of the product and is directly involved with its development it is because they analyze the product from a customer's perspective the product manager outlines what the product success looks like whereas the product owner outlines the path and resources required to achieve the success the product manager provides cross-functional leadership they work closely with sales support marketing and engineering to deliver the best product experience whereas the product owner works closely with internal stakeholders such as qa staff ui ux designers and the operations team the product manager creates a product roadmap that outlines the vision direction priorities and other things but the product owner works closely with the product owner when required to review the product roadmap and make sure the priorities are aligned properly by this point we have a clear distinction between a product owner and a product manager's responsibilities often the responsibilities can shift a little when teams undergo a transformation then we have stakeholders they are the people who have an interest in the final product can influence the process of product management and development and are involved in decision making in product management stakeholders can be customers sponsors key decision makers professionals and regulators their typical responsibilities can be providing feedback describing the requirements in detail influencing decision making approving or disapproving the products contributing new features and much more all these stakeholders influence the final outcome of the product development and product managers have to communicate and work with all of them this process is called stakeholder management we will talk about other related roles when discussing the career path so now you guys have an overall idea of what product management and how it evolved to what it is today by now you already have an idea of what the product manager role entails we already went through the roles and responsibilities of a product manager now let us check out the skills that an individual must have in order to be a successful product manager successful product managers have a mix of technical skills soft skills and domain specific skills but unlike software development accounting or biology there isn't a particular major or educational path where you learn these skills or even find out what they are technical skills product managers define the direction of the product and how their team builds it this requires a special set of technical planning organization and prioritization skills requirements gathering the most important skill for a product manager is figuring out what customers want and need and then translating that information into requirements for the developers who will actually be building the product implementation planning and sprint management in agile development teams work in one to two week blocks called sprints it's the product manager's job to determine which tasks will fall into the sprint and who will tackle each one prioritization skills it is highly important for a product owner to have ruthless prioritization skills to ensure that the team is always working on what's important knowing how to prioritize and how to respectfully turn down requests that could upset your product's strategic priorities is an extremely valuable skill proficiency in research and analysis no product manager worth their salt would dare make an argument without having data to back it up with data the product managers can be alert about both opportunities or threats in the market it can guide them to the right places to focus on development resources the problem though is it can be tough to get your hands on that data when you need it that's why the first technical skill we suggest all product managers master is data competency strategic thinking a product owner should have good insight into the market and competition strategic thinking will help you to find the company's vision and then work towards the vision with realistic and achievable goals strategic thinking is also needed for defining that all too important product roadmap design and ux skills product managers don't need to write nor must they master ux design however having a decent understanding of ux design etc is a must-have for product managers in the sas world the ux dictates the success of the company so having a basic knowledge of ux and combining this with the knowledge of your ux researcher for example will set you up for success specific software and tool skills as a product manager you'll need to have some basic familiarity with your team's tech stack in order to plan appropriately and communicate effectively with developers apart from technical skills a product manager should have soft skills to excel in his career selflessness emotional intelligence empathy communication curiosity interpersonal skills and much more the other common core skills that are necessary include teamwork and team building and excellent time management so how is the future of a product manager looking according to research product managers are receiving some of the highest salary offers which indicates that the demand for product managers and management is on the rise in fact many ceos of some top tech companies actually come from product management backgrounds so there is huge room for career growth in this field in such a competitive market it's critical for you to set yourself apart from the rest and strive to be in the top one percent of product managers achieve this by honing and developing the skills we've mentioned above and never stop learning the job sounds interesting but let's cut to the chase what is the earning potential according to salary sites like glassdoor and payscale typical salaries among product managers can range anywhere from sixty three thousand dollars to over two hundred thousand dollars depending on your experience skill set and level of responsibility the salary of the product manager varies so what are the roles that you can get in the field of product management at the entry level we have an associate product manager in terms of the day-to-day work associate product managers can expect to be involved with everything a product manager typically does just on a smaller scale responsibilities might include collecting quantitative product data and metrics through market research synthesizing customer research gathering product requirements and aligning them with business goals coordinating with stakeholders to achieve the product vision developing new product features working on developing product strategies this is an entry-level role so it's a chance to learn the ropes and demonstrate how coachable you are and how well you listen to and understand the customer and product market according to pay scale the associate product manager makes around 69 825 then we have a product manager role which we already talked about it is a mid-level role and you will be responsible for the strategy roadmap and features of a product you'll need to be able to work with cross-functional teams including ux engineering and marketing to conduct accurate data analysis forecasting and market research the product managers typically make around 109 000 per year moving on we have senior product managers they share similar responsibilities as the product manager but on a higher level just with higher impact higher visibility products senior pms usually have a solid background in product management by this point in their career they are in position to lead other more junior product managers and work closely with product leaders in the organization to contribute to an execute on product strategy they exhibit curiosity and passion not just for their product and customers but also for the production process itself the senior product managers typically make around 124 000 per year then we have a director of product management it is at an executive level position a director-level role in a product will require leadership experience and the ability to build and trust a team to do the work you previously did as a sole contributor you will also spend a significant amount of time researching the market landscape their product lives in so basically the director role moves away from direct product management to leadership you should have a strong management background and be comfortable working with senior and executive leadership you'll participate in strategic projects as needed but will spend the majority of your time crafting high-level strategy and ensuring your team's activities are advancing that strategy in the most effective way possible the director of product management typically makes around 149 000 per year moving on we have a vp of the product at this level of the product management career path you are significantly less involved with the hands-on activities related to the product development process the high-level responsibilities at this level include budgeting strategic alignment and communicating within building leadership buy-in also protecting the product team from infighting and internal politics in large organizations there might be more than one vp of product depending on the number of product lines whether there's one vp or several this role is a high-level support resource for the product organization responsible for the entire product set and how it fits into the rest of the organization the vp of the product typically makes around one hundred eighty one thousand dollars per year lastly we have a chief product officer cpo is the next logical step for an experienced vp of product the rule typically reports to the ceo and oversees all product activities in the organization making sure staffing resources budget and research are being invested in the areas that will provide the combined best benefit all these come as the responsibilities of a chief product officer while the average base salary for a cpo is just under 200 000 total compensation packages can reach much higher with annual bonus and stock options well these are the typical roles that you can get into in the product management domain despite a person being skilled and talented there is always time and efficiency to be considered this is where relevant tools come into picture product management tools make the job of a product manager or in fact anybody else is a bit easier and smooth there are a wide variety of tools for different purposes available in the market to make product development and management a lot easier one such tool that we are going to discuss today is roadmonk it is end-to-end road mapping by this point you already know what a roadmap is in product management let me summarize it for you guys a product roadmap is simply a high-level visual summary which maps out the vision and direction of your product offering over time it basically communicates the why and what behind what you're building ideally your product roadmap should convey the strategic direction for your product here are some simple reasons why roadmaps are useful a roadmap helps to create a very detailed product strategy literacy across your organization in this way all the decisions will be grounded in that high level plan and direction secondly a roadmap facilitates cross-functional team collaboration and clarity around priorities also a great roadmap gives executives and other stakeholders complete visibility into what's happening changing or progressing within the strategy lastly a product roadmap is a powerful channel of communication conversations around the y how and who of the work to be done create a culture of alignment and deep understanding of the vision and direction for the product great right so without any delay let us go ahead and see how to create one roadmonk allows you to create flexible and easy to use roadmaps let's first check the pricing so as you can see to test the features you can sign up for a free trial which is valid for 14 days post that if you want to continue the product there are different plans that you can go with such as starter business professional and enterprise plans go ahead and compare these plans and check out what they have to offer like i mentioned earlier roadmonk is an end-to-end road mapping tool the best thing is they also have pre-designed roadmap templates that you can use if you have no idea where to get started from precisely because of these best features and others a lot of companies such as amazon cisco nike and others are using roadmonk as you can see roadmonk offers 35 roadmapping templates plus for all these templates you have the option to integrate the jira or import data from csv and visualize your roadmap in timeline or swimlane view it allows your entire team to collaborate and utilize the roadmap therefore with all these customizations that roadmonk offers you can make your product strategy stand out from others like i mentioned roadmonk comes with built-in jira integration so let us go ahead and figure out how to use the roadmonk tool you can create an account or sign up with your google account give all the details requested and you are good to go in this demo i am going to log in using a gmail account to create a free account give your details as requested you can choose to invite others to use this roadmap right now while creating the account or later as well let us go ahead and invite some sample users click on send invitations in the next page you can choose to create a roadmap from scratch or use a template or you can use the sample roadmaps provided by the roadmonk first let us use a sample one and check out the features great as you can see we have different types of roadmaps here for example business roadmap to visualize where your organization is going then we have a product roadmap to visualize your strategy also there is a project roadmap and technology roadmap in this demo let us go with the product roadmap here you have two options you can create your roadmap based on timeline or swim lanes dot timelines are the more traditional way of visualizing a road map showing a time oriented view of items such as initiatives and objectives punctuated by milestones to highlight goals achievement and other important time markers a swim lane diagram is a type of flow chart that delineates who does what in a process let's go with the timeline view for now you will see a sample roadmap visualized based on the timeline on your screen click on the air symbol that you see on the top left corner of the screen there you will be able to find the list of road maps that you have created coming back to the sample road map you can click on the as you can see you have something called milestones milestones are a great way to spotlight your organization's goals major releases trade shows and achievements by visualizing a goal or key result on a roadmap milestones help your team rally behind it and understand what it takes to get there if you click on the milestone here you can see the list you can also add new milestones by clicking on add new milestone then set the deadline for this template and milestone type for example if it is a release or a launch and such and lastly assign the team responsible for you can always add new items as well and rearrange them as you can see on the screen you will understand these better once we go ahead and create a roadmap from scratch also as you can see you can change the view to swimlane type which will show you the status of the tasks for every item you can see the item name the person responsible for it and the percentage completed so in this view you can visualize the items or tasks based on the status such as in backlog in design in development or complete great let us go ahead and create a roadmap from scratch to be honest creating a roadmap requires a lot of planning through this video i am just showing you how to create one using roadmonk so that you understand the features of roadmonk tools and get a very rough picture of how to create a roadmap so here's a question for you by now you already know what a roadmap is what do you think are the essential pieces or components of a roadmap let me help you out with that first we have timelines you don't need to list specific dates on your roadmap however you need to have a way to clearly outline and prioritize short-term features medium-term features and features you're planning for in the long term your timelines can be something like this q1 q2 q3 and q4 that is nothing but quarter one two three and four or it could be months or years the next component we have is the features of your product what features are you releasing along the timeline above you can categorize these based on what you're looking to communicate and what tools you use for project management you can just view them as a feature you are building or you can create a hierarchy of broad feature themes down to more specific sub features the other important component is goals which is nothing more than what you are looking to accomplish with your products and features these goals can be anything it may be product specific goals or business goals now let us learn how to use the roadmonk tool to create a roadmap for your product after login the first thing that you see is the roadmonk homepage this is where you can access all your roadmaps as well as the ones other people in your account have shared with you like you see on the screen to create a new roadmap click on the new here then select the new roadmap option give a title to your roadmap in this example let us call it as sample roadmap and select a fiscal year end as march 31st for those who don't know what it is fiscal year-end refers to the completion of a one-year or 12-month accounting period you can always customize after clicking on create the first thing you see of your new roadmap is the items table view the items table has two default fields items and date all roadmonk roadmaps have these two key fields and they can't be deleted you can create these items manually or import them from a csv file let us go ahead and create one manually click on the add item option that you can see on your screen an item card will open up the item card is like command central for items where you can view edit and manage everything associated with an item you can go ahead and provide the details such as name a brief description for example let me create an item called login authentication feature and some relevant description for example completing the login authentication feature by the dev team now you can go ahead and add file attachments if any or dependencies with other items and sub-items as well let us set the date as well to march 23rd to april 10. you also have an option to add an additional field if you want like who is responsible for the task you can opt to do that later as well and then click on create so your item is created that's one way to create the items table also has support for inline item creation letting you quickly add items to your roadmap all you have to do is navigate to the items table and hover your cursor between two rows and click the green plus symbol to create a new item give it a name here let us say two factor authentication and then set the timing like you see on the screen to view details of the item click the item's name in the items table to open the item card easy right now if you want to add more details to the item you can just click the item's name in the items table this will open up the item card now to import the items via a csv file you just need to click on the downward arrow that you see here and click on import from csv once you upload the csv file the next step is field mapping here you can make the format the file the way you want to use the file after importing the file suppose you have changed your mind and don't want to include a column you can do so in this step just click on the column name the downward arrow that you see and you can see do not import option in the end that's it you can always restore it back roadmonk auto detects the date format in the csv and sets the format and roadmap to match if see that the formats don't match select the right one in the date format drop down if you think you are good to go click on next next step is to visualize for that you can either click on the visualize that you can see here or on plus view option that you see on the top before that let me add another item say language settings and tweak the dates for all these items a little bit cool i will click on this view option here if you have not created a view before you need to click on plus view a dialog box will open where you can select either swim lane or timeline type that we discussed earlier in this example let me select the timeline view you can now see the sample roadmap on the screen right actually you can resize your item timeline from here as well by expanding or decreasing the item as you can see let me do that for all these items if i do that i get a notification that the item has been resized great now let us go back to the previous view you can just click on the downward arrow here and select all data suppose i want to add a new field how do i do that easy you just need to click on this plus mark you see here it says add field let us say i'm adding a field called owner i mean the owner for that particular item for type i am selecting it as a team member and enabling the option notify the team member when they are i have already added a few team members in the beginning so i will just add them here bear with me now i'm going to assign owners for all of these items if you have not added any other team you can add them now for that you need to click on the plus that you see on the top right corner you can then enter an email it or a name if your team members are already using a roadmonk account anyways let us give an email in for now let's say eric and i am making in collaborators then click on invite similarly let me invite a few more users do not forget to click on save now that we have people added to the roadmap you can easily assign an item to a team member like you can see on the screen let me create another item say mobile login set the date and the owner as well similarly i am adding another field called status as a list type also let us go ahead and add some values the items can take for this field let's say in progress backlog review testing scheduled completed etc now i am going to assign values for this field for all the items that we have similarly let me add another field which specifies the percentage of work completed in this case let us keep the type as number under that percentage you can remove any of these fields anytime by clicking on the remove from roadmap option like being shown on the screen but you cannot delete the item in the date field also you can rank your items according to what makes sense to you you know based on complexity or level of importance to do that you need to click on the rank that you can see on the left side of the item place your cursor on the three dots and drag the item to where you want to place it simple you can also move your items to another roadmap select the item and click on the move option like i'm doing you need to select the roadmap to which you want to move the item to and then confirm the action okay now let us create a view which i already mentioned earlier you just need to click on plus view and select the timeline option you will be greeted with a very simple view of the roadmap like you see on the screen you can customize the look of the roadmap based on filters and colors let's do that click on the format option here let us change the header to some existing field like owner you can see that is reflecting on the roadmap let me change it to status then you can change the subheader to the owner as you can see the view of the roadmap has completely changed and is visible based on header and subheader let me remove the subheader format for now next you can change the theme as well there are two options available now i'm going to select the percentage completed for item progress you can see the changes being reflected that is percentage completed field is visible for every item then you can change the label to date or status or other options currently the label is item name similarly you can change the label suffix the label size and other settings let me change the label suffix to owner please observe the changes in the roadmap you can also opt to change the size of the label like i'm doing similarly you can check out the other options here in the same dialog box you can click on colors here to change the color in the color by column you can select the field of your choice here let's say status you can also change the palette color to your choice to change the colors of the header and the values of the status field you can just drag and drop them like being shown on the screen so these are some visible changes that you can make i recommend you to explore more on these features and settings one last thing is to add milestones like i mentioned in the beginning milestones are a great way to spotlight your organization's goals major releases trade shows and achievements a roadmaps milestones can be displayed on a timeline together with the roadmaps items and are a great way to spotlight goals achievements events and other related time markers let us see how to add a milestone manually on your home screen click on milestones and you can easily add one like we discussed for the item for example let's edit a milestone called release one date let's keep it somewhere on june 25th the type of milestone let it be a launch similarly you can create multiple milestones also please note that you can create a milestone in detail using a milestone card like you see on the screen great now to view this milestone go back to view and if you scroll down you can see your milestone there if it is not visible you might have to go to the format option and enable the milestone view under display you can see the milestone here i am going to create another field for milestones let's say status and assign the value in progress let's go back to view and check the milestone is now in the progress stage somehow my items are not visible let me check what's the issue okay i need to enable both item and milestone visibility in the display so here we go you can now see both your items and milestones on your roadmap let us add a value called milestone and place our first milestone there for better understanding so that's it guys product roadmaps are critical for your success creating a great product without a roadmap is basically like going on a road trip without a map you see if you're lucky you might eventually get to your destination otherwise it's highly probable that you'll likely end up in some run-down motel with this we have reached the end of the session hope you guys liked it are you planning to get a product owner certification we can help at invensis learning we provide scrum alliance accredited certified scrum product owner training worldwide enroll now and take the next step in your pursuit to master product development and management for more updates on trending technologies subscribe to invensus learning youtube channel also if you have any queries share them with us in the comments section