Rolling out Roadmaps in a Startup

One of the more delicate, and demanding, documents in a startup is the product roadmap. After getting feedback followed by buy-in from the different constituents, it becomes time to rollout the roadmap to customers, team members, analysts, and prospects (some pre-sale engagements sell the vision of what’s to come in the product).

Here are some ideas for rolling out a roadmap:

• An annual formal presentation on what to expect over the next 12 months at the user’s conference
• A quarterly customer advisory council that meets via GoToMeeting and gets a private walk through as well as Q&A of the roadmap
• A quarterly webinar for existing customers combined with a blog post summarizing what can be expected in the next three months
• A monthly employee-only product show-and-tell that gives a preview of progress for each item on the roadmap

So much time goes into building and managing the product roadmap that often there isn’t enough effort put in to rolling it out to constituents. Communicating the vision is a critical part of successful startups and should not be underestimated.

What else? What are some other ideas around rolling out roadmaps in a startup?