- \n
- Communication<\/li>\n
- Working with other departments<\/li>\n
- Getting consensus on product direction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
And now that teams are more often than not working remotely, managers have additional obstacles.<\/p>\n
Remote product managers need to find ways to communicate and share information with their teams in a virtual environment. They also need to keep a team motivated and working toward the same goals.<\/p>\n
A remote work playbook<\/a> can help you address some of the issues of working remotely. But in order to establish an effective, company-wide process for remote product management, you\u2019ll also need to develop a \u201cfit for purpose\u201d roadmap.<\/p>\n
Which could end up looking something like this:<\/strong><\/p>\n
![\"canny](\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\")
Here’s one way to set up your product roadmap<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Why is roadmapping important for remote product management?<\/h2>\n
Without a roadmap in place, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. Having a fully remote team can make this even harder.<\/p>\n
A good roadmap provides the team with clear directions around their progress and includes the answers to questions in one easy-to-access place. It should give users a detailed visualization of the team\u2019s strategic direction.<\/p>\n
As things change over the course of the product\u2019s development (and they inevitably will), the roadmap keeps team members in the loop. Then, they can adjust their priorities and workload accordingly.<\/p>\n
Now that we\u2019ve covered why a roadmap is vital for remote teams, here are some of the best ways to create and share your roadmap.<\/p>\n
How to create a successful remote product management roadmap<\/h2>\n
1. Always keep an open roadmap available online<\/h3>\n
Version control can be problematic for product managers, especially if they\u2019re using the wrong tools for their roadmaps.<\/p>\n
Spreadsheets and presentation documents are static documents and need updating every time a change is made. As new versions are constantly being created and sent out, team members often find it hard to keep track of which is the latest version.<\/p>\n
Having the right collaborative tool with a product roadmap feature<\/a>\u00a0can help here. This allows a product manager to make updates in real-time that can be shared automatically, either with the whole team or with specific users.<\/p>\n
And, the roadmap can be made publicly accessible<\/a>, so anyone can access it at their convenience.<\/p>\n
The roadmap provides the one source of truth and reveals how each team member\u2019s to-do list contributes to the overall strategic objectives for the product. A solution like Canny, too, lets you build your roadmap around real-time customer or colleague feedback<\/a>, so it’s clear why specific projects are represented on the roadmap.<\/p>\n
![\"canny](\"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/roadmap-gantt.png\")
![\"Canny](\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/5705808\/e1d55d08-a2cf-44a3-a9a0-f3ca5ff21dfa.png\")
<\/a><\/span>