prioritizing-roadmap

A coaching skill for prioritizing product roadmaps and backlogs, drawing on frameworks and quotes from 75 product leaders. It is meant for moments when a team is deciding what to build next, sequencing features, allocating resources across projects, weighing stakeholder requests, or simply facing too many competing priorities. Rather than mechanically scoring items, it guides the user through understanding the decision context, assessing the portfolio, recommending appropriate frameworks, and challenging whether current priorities are truly the most impactful.

Its core principles are illustrated with practitioner insights: separating truth from hypothesis by categorizing inputs by conviction level; thinking in market 'seasons' instead of rigid long-term roadmaps in fast-changing environments; building a 'common currency' such as a growth model so different teams' impacts can be compared; forcing big thinking with a 'what would you do with 20% more time' prompt; and balancing high-investment 'cannonballs' with incremental 'lead bullets' at roughly an 80/20 split. Other principles frame roadmaps as feasibility reality checks rather than commitments, call prioritization the highest-leverage PM skill, and encourage killing features used by only a tiny fraction of users.

To move a conversation forward it offers probing questions, for example what single thing you would ship this quarter, or what on the roadmap you secretly believe will not move the needle. It also flags common mistakes such as prioritizing by the loudest voice, filling the roadmap with only incremental work, treating roadmaps as spreadsheets without narrative, never saying no, and optimizing solely for near-term ROI. A reference file collects all 91 insights from the guests for deeper study.