I had a funny discussion about roadmaps recently.

Me: If you can't hit your dates, then you shouldn't distribute roadmaps.
Client: But we must distribute a roadmap to sales people.
M: And what happens when you do?
C: They give it to clients.
M: And what happens?
C: They attach the roadmap to a contract.
M: How's that working for you?
C: Well, we usually miss our dates.
M: If you can't hit your dates, then you shouldn't distribute roadmaps.
C: But we must distribute a roadmap to sales people.
M: And what happens when you do?...

In Don’t Build a Stupid Product Roadmap!, Scott Sehlhorst at Tyner Blain writes,

A product roadmap is the product manager’s equivalent of a project manager’s rolling wave planning. In a sound-bite, you provide short-term details (for the next release), and long term “broad brush” discussions. If you don’t plan your product to address the needs of a particular market, and then execute against that plan, the only way you will succeed is by luck.

That's it. A roadmap is a plan, not a commitment. It says, "here are our current plans. Our objectives may change and we'll change our roadmap accordingly."

As they say, If you don't know where you're going, how will you get there?

In our Roadmapping seminar, we provide five different tools for articulating product strategy. The roadmap is evidence that you actually do have a strategy. The roadmap is the tool of choice for communicating with executives, sales people, and clients. And in fact, seeing your product roadmap is often a legitimate request from your clients and your sales people.

However, and I've ranted about this before, things don't change nearly as quickly as everyone thinks. That is, market problems exist for years and years. It's your awareness of those problems that changes day-to-day. I'd prefer that your long-term roadmap focus on industry problems and persona goals. In talking with a client about product capabilities, this client's feature request becomes critical. Talking to another client results in another critical feature request. As you talk about features, you discover the delta between the problem and your current solution. But if product managers actually interviewed the clients instead of just reacting to sales demands, we would see these problems years in the future.

You don't hear problems with your mouth. You need to create an environment where you can hear problems... with your ears open and your mouth closed. Better yet, see the problems by observing your ideal persona in a working experience.

You can observe a lot by watching.--Yogi Berra

Art Petty asks, "Marketers, Are Trade Shows Extinct Yet?"

I used to love trade shows, especially the ones in Las Vegas and Reno. Maybe because no one cared if you had a drink at 10am and you could smoke everywhere. Perhaps it's because I'm secretly tacky. In any case, I don't do many trade shows any more. When I do attend, I'm there as a speaker rather than an exhibitor.

That's always been my rule: if we exhibit, we must also speak. Some conferences, like the government, want sponsor's money but not the sponsor. You want my money? Then you get me as a speaker. Don't want me as a speaker? No money for you.

Trade shows are hard to justify based on ROI; webinars are easy to justify.

I love conferences--you are face to face with the industry, competition and customers--but I don't do them much any more; they're too expensive.

I hate webinars--the format is stilted, you can't see facial expressions, the Q&A process is confusing--but I do them all the time because they're rather cheap and usually effective. (I'm doing a webinar on The Four Roles of product management. Join me!)

A product designer is--or should be--a valued member of any product team. Cooper's Kim Goodwin writes,

These days, more and more companies are recognizing that design and innovation are essential to their strategy and bottom line: effective design sells products and services, improves your position in the marketplace, and turns customers into loyal advocates for your brand. If you've gotten your organization to this point, take a moment to enjoy your success! Creating demand for design is no small achievement. Unfortunately, to reap the full benefits of design, you probably still have a lot of work to do on your organization's structure, processes, and culture.

Read more in Where does design belong in your organization?

How can you make money when your product is available free?

I've just purchased Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. It's a clever young adult (YA) novel about being a kid in America in the very near future--with access to so much technology yet victimized by an overbearing government. I'm only six chapters in so far but I love this guy's writing. (Hint: don't read this book if you strongly support the Patriot Act.)

In a case of "new rules" marketing, he is offering the book through the traditional vendors but also via free downloads!

Doctorow explains,

For me--for pretty much every writer--the big problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity.

And when you love a book, don't you tell people? And don't you buy a new copy after you lend the old as a gift? I've done that with Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, The Old Man's War, Pillars of the Earth plus Inmates are Running the Asylum, The Deadline, The PC is not a Typewriter, New Rules of Marketing, and others.

The same is true of products. The challenge for most products--and product marketers--is overcoming obscurity. One way for people to find you is to publish. Fill your web site with white papers, ebooks, news releases, implementation guides... rich content written for users and technicians, not just brochureware for buyers.

Just win me over! And then I'll buy and buy and buy.

My friend Saeed has decided to start a little controversy. Is product management really a profession? Can it be defined? Can it be learned? In particular, why is it that we say we want to be strategic but all of the discussions and webinars and articles seem to be about tactics: product launch, templates, leadgen, running the agile stand-up, writing better user stories?

Saeed asks,

What have we done in the last 10 years to make our lot better? And I don’t just mean incrementally better? I mean significantly better?

What I hear from hundreds of seminar attendees over the years is that new product managers need help figuring out where to spend their time. Or to put it another way, three days of training is better than zero days.

Adam from Write That Down adds:

Is product management hard? No. The trick is not being the best marketer, accountant, UI designer, developer, sales person all rolled in to one. The trick is to make sure that features get built, marketing communicates them, support can answer questions, and sales can sell.

So let's sound off. Post a comment below or on Saeed's site about the results that you have seen based on strategic product management.

I just love being quoted in a news release! It makes me seem so clever, particularly when I use long sentences that are also well-written. I don't even care that the release came from my own marketing department. Is that sad?