How Product Line Roadmaps Differ From Product Roadmaps And Why You Need Both A product line roadmap is a timeline graphic that communicates how a team intends to carry out a product line strategy. It shows milestones and key relationships between strategy parts. At least one platform-lever[1] is central to most product line strategies. Teams […]
The âPivotâ is synonymous with successful startups. Experts love to tell the stories about how pivots are the key to success. Paypal, Starbucks, and Twitter all found fortune through a pivot. And youâll also hear business school and consulting jargon thrown at the topic. Phrases spring to mind like strategic agility and business model re-alignment. […]
Germans declare it Industrie 4.0. The Yanks tag it as The Connected Enterprise. And the Brit’s give it the 4th Industrial Revolution moniker. Any way you slice it, itâs the future. The product development community, especially those in large organizations, donât seem as caught up in a name. Iâve seen Innovation 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 […]
Innovation can drive business growth. Itâs a key to every organizationâs well-being. But many companies carry out innovation haphazardly. Theyâre more likely to count on serendipity, not strategic thinking, to drive gains from innovation. Unfortunately, management teams have little clarity on why, how, or when to advance product offerings. No wonder Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen […]
Iâm often asked, âWhatâs the difference between Multi-generational Product Planning and Product Line Strategizing and Roadmapping?â The answer needs a short discussion. And exploring the differences and similarities is insightful. Multi-Generational Product Planning[i] (MGPP) and Product Line Strategizing and Roadmapping[ii] (PLSR) are different. But MGPP and PLSR are also closely related. To understand, letâs first […]
If youâre interested in NPD and R&D portfolio management, here is an important insight: Most Portfolio Management presentations discuss only development projects. They do not show, analyze, or rationalize front-end work. Anyone new to product development might assume Portfolio Management should only be about products under development. But if thatâs all, then portfolio management misses its greatest opportunity for […]
I have a simple message for everyone involved in product development. This message is especially important for PMOs. These are the managerâs responsible for analyzing project portfolios. They calculate resources and priorities to determine who should work on which projects. âPortfolio Balanceâ is misguided. The problem is no one knows what the âbalanceâ should be. […]
Look over a few articles on innovation. Ask yourself if theyâre about innovating one product at a time or do they suggest innovating multiple products? Do they propose innovating whole product lines? This is important because product lines are far more powerful than a single product. Itâs time to think much bigger. Itâs time to […]
Project prioritization is difficult. As a result, senior managers who govern portfolios often make things up as they go. Why not? Somebody must figure whatâs more important and whatâs not. It might as well be whoever is looking at the bubble charts. There are two big challenges with figuring out project prioritization. First, product lines […]
In my book and workshops, I lay out a strong framework for product line strategies. I complement this with an easily understood lexicon. Together, the framework and lexicon are important to gaining greater impact from product lines. And theyâre not just for product line teams. Let me explain why. Product line success in large companies […]
