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Product & Roadmaps Patterns

Go from raw request to features people use.

Methods for taking product work from a raw request to a feature people actually use. For product managers, designers and engineering leads, the cards cover turning requests into problems worth solving, discovering what to build, prioritising, showing direction on a roadmap without overpromising, writing specs a team can build from, aligning stakeholders and launching for adoption.

56 cards · 7 suits · 5 recipes · 2 missions

What's inside

• Frame8Is the real problem clear behind the request?
• Discover8Have you tested the idea with real customers?
• Prioritise8Can you explain why this goes first?
• Roadmap8Does the roadmap promise only what you can keep?
• Specify8Will the team build the right thing from this?
• Align8Are the key stakeholders on your side?
• Launch8Are people actually using what you shipped?

A few cards

Frame

Outcome Over Output

Say what people will do differently, not what you will ship.

Discover

Dual-Track Work

Learn what to build next while you build what you learnt last.

Roadmap

Now, Next, Later

Swap the dated timeline for three columns that grow less certain from left to right.

One card in full

Align

Power-Interest Grid

Place each stakeholder by how much power they have and how much they care, then treat each quadrant differently.

Treating every stakeholder the same wastes effort in both directions: the busy executive gets weekly detail they never read, while the team that will live with the change hears about it last. A simple two-by-two sorts people so your time goes where it counts.

How to use it

1. List everyone affected by or able to affect the work. Include people who can block it quietly.
2. Draw a grid: power up the side, interest along the bottom.
3. Place each name. High power, high interest: involve closely. High power, low interest: keep satisfied with short updates. Low power, high interest: keep informed and listen. Low power, low interest: inform occasionally.
4. Write one action and one channel next to each quadrant.
5. Mark anyone you expect to move, such as a manager who becomes interested once budgets are touched.
6. Revisit the grid at each major milestone.

Example

A hypothetical school rolling out a new reporting system places the head teacher as high power, low interest, and form tutors as low power, high interest. Tutors get a fortnightly preview; the head gets a monthly one-line summary.

Watch out

• Sharing the grid itself. People rarely enjoy learning they sit in "low interest".

Use it to plan who to Pre-Wire The Room with and to settle Who Signs Off.

Recipes

• From Ask To Problem: Take a feature request back to the struggle behind it, decide whose problem it is, put numbers on it, sort what you know from what you guess and end with an outcome to aim for.
• Launch That Sticks: Size the launch, try it with a small group, brief the people customers will ask, release before you announce, tell users at the moment of use, then measure adoption and decide.
• Plan The Quarter: Group the work into outcome themes, tie each to a goal, split capacity by kind of work, score and rank the candidates, then show the result as Now, Next, Later.
• Spec The Team Can Build: Write the problem on a page, phrase the needs as situations, map the journey, cut it into thin working slices, write examples for each and check them as a trio before work starts.
• Stakeholders On Side: Map who matters, talk to them before the meeting, agree who decides, handle new asks by trading, decline what you must with reasons and keep everyone informed each month.

Missions

• Draft a roadmap: from a pile of requests and goals to a Now, Next, Later roadmap of outcome themes, each with its reason, confidence and owner, in versions for leaders, the team and customers.
• Test a product idea: from a product idea the team already likes to the one way it is most likely to fail, turned into a small test with a pass line, a deadline and the decision each result triggers.

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