The product roadmap is well thought out and addresses our potential future needs

Description

The roadmap should detail the vendor's plans for future updates, the expected timelines for those updates, and how they align with prospective potential future requirements of the customer. It ensures that the software will grow and evolve along with the industry and customers it targets. The roadmap should not be a band-aid for missing critical features.

Example Use Case

Scenario: A growing SaaS company is shopping for a planning and forecasting product. They plan to add more product lines in the future, and potentially acquire another SaaS organization or a services business to help with implementations. Products that offer acquisition modeling are too expensive for them today, as such they limit their search to less expensive tools.

Solution: One of the lower cost vendors shares a roadmap where acquisition modeling features will be released in 18 months, which coincides with the customers growth plans. The roadmap shows specific features that will be released in that time frame, and at a reasonable cadence.

Considerations

Roadmaps show the health of a software company, indicating to customers that they plan to continue adding value to their product and to their existing customers over time. This shows that the vendor has the necessary funds to continue investing in development, and that they are self-aware about what the product needs to grow in the market.

The roadmap can tell you what the vendor considers a deficiency in the product. Some vendors will hide the roadmap precisely because they do not want to expose those deficiencies. If the vendor is unwilling to be transparent with the roadmap that should be a red flag for the buyer.

Analyze the content of the roadmap. Do you see anything substantial, or is it just bug fixes? Is the product so old, and the ownership resistant to change, that they consider the product “feature complete”?

Questions to Ask a Vendor

Roadmap Insight: Can you provide a detailed roadmap of the product for the next 2-3 years?

Roadmap Execution: How faithfully has your company followed previous roadmaps in terms of timelines and projected updates?

User Influence: How does user feedback and suggestions influence your roadmap planning?

Gaps: What do you perceive as your biggest product / customer need gap today?