Drop Feature-Based Product Roadmaps

Teresa Torres argues that annual feature-based product roadmaps create false certainty, since release dates routinely slip and features get reshuffled. Product leaders still owe their teams a map, but it should show direction and decision-making rather than a list of dated features. She suggests communicating the success and growth funnels, the trade-offs between them, and progress toward goals. Externally, teams should talk about benefits rather than promise distant features, sharing only the next release. The piece matters because it reframes roadmaps as a communication problem, not a planning-document problem.

01Key takeaways

• Your job is to absorb product uncertainty so other teams can plan with confidence.
• Feature-based roadmaps with fixed dates tend to create chaos rather than certainty.
• Share how decisions are made and where your current point of leverage lies, not a feature list.
• Use success and growth funnels to make trade-offs visible across the company.
• Talk to customers about benefits and only commit to the next release, not distant quarters.

02Key sections

Uncertainty and the need for a map

Product leaders absorb the uncertainty of building products so that teammates in sales, support, and marketing can plan without it. Their job is to show where the product is headed and how it will get there.

Why feature roadmaps backfire

Annual feature lists with release dates give a sense of certainty that rarely holds, leading to chaos, political haggling, and constant defense of deviations. The author argues features are the wrong unit for planning.

Communicate the process, not the feature list

Instead of listing features, teams should explain how decisions get made, using success and growth funnels to show where leverage lies and what trade-offs exist.

Talk to customers about benefits

Customers and internal teams need only the next release in detail, framed around benefits. Long-range feature promises set expectations that are hard to keep and rarely matter to the audience.

03From the post

“When I work on a product, I think about it all day long. I obsess over it. I love exploring the long view. What will this product look like next year? Five years from now? Ten years from now? I love the challenge of identifying the very next step on”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.