The Road to an MVP and Beyond

Last week we launched a game on the Internet, but more about that in a future post :)

For now, I want to pick back up where we left off with our Product Vision and how it led to the next step of developing a Product Roadmap that would lead us to where we are now. A former general manager from my Xbox days once said,

"Great product manager are great storytellers and bring people along for the ride."

…which really stuck with me. I think that when used effectively, product roadmaps can be a great tool to align teams, stakeholders and players around the journey our product will go through to deliver more and more value to the world. This creates a clarity of purpose that I think is fundamental to growing teams that are highly effective and developing products that people actually love. This sounds preachy, but I think it's important.

The roadmap should also communicate a high-level strategic plan, answering in broad strokes some of the "how" questions about a product's growth. This makes the ambiguous process of developing and prioritizing a product backlog more objective. More on that in a later post.

Borrowing again from Roman Pichler's goal-oriented product roadmap template, here's what we've got so far:

Again, like the product vision board, it's intentionally concise and low-fidelity to drive more face-to-face conversation and encourage iteration as we learn things (and we've learned a lot since the initial draft; I'm sure this will have changed by the time you're reading this).

The key takeaway from this roadmap is that we're intentionally aiming to launch a very minimal but viable product (core mechanics + distribution channel + learning systems) and grow the game as a service going forward. As opposed to launching first on app stores or consoles, the web offers a powerful advantage in delivering immediate value and rapidly iterating on feedback towards a full-fledged game across platforms.

Exciting times ahead :)