Each quarter Product develops (or refines) a roadmap and then shares it with the team to provide focus and direction. A good product owner will reflect on the past quarter and highlight the team’s commitments, strategy, and accomplishments. Then they’ll share where the team is headed in the quarter ahead — what are the outcomes the team is working towards? How will the team deliver value to the user? How will the team enable the company to meet its goals? Ideally this document will inspire and invigorate the team, energizing and focusing them for the work ahead.

The UX team should go through the same exercise in order to develop their own perspective, priorities, and focus.

Why developing a UX roadmap is crucial

Invite yourself to think high level

Creating a roadmap forces you to take a step back. Instead of focusing on specific features or minute details, a roadmap spurs you to get out of the weeds and consider a more holistic view of the product, your users’ actual needs, and your overall goals.

Put your strategy hat on

A roadmap forces you to prioritize and establish clarity and alignment. What will you focus on? What outcomes do you want to achieve? What’s most important or impactful? What will you focus on and commit to? Asking and answering these questions will help you develop a more thoughtful and effective UX and product strategy.

Pull up a seat to the table

While Product will develop their own roadmap, having UX go through the same exercise is incredibly valuable. Developing a roadmap and sharing it with Product, Engineering, and other stakeholders can lead to fruitful and productive discussions, which in turn can foster more inclusive and beneficial partnerships.

Think of your roadmap as a blueprint — it will likely change, but going through the process to develop is it invaluable. It helps you develop a perspective and voice along with clarity and focus.

How do you develop a UX roadmap?

Review potential priorities

Personally I keep a running list of potential research topics and projects. Whenever I’m chatting with colleagues and we have a good idea, I’ll jot it down to make sure we don’t forget about it. When developing a roadmap, I’ll start by cataloguing and reviewing potential topics for the quarter.

Review your goals

Once I understand the scope of potential work, I’ll review our various goals. What are we trying to accomplish overall in order to enable and empower users? What are the most pressing user needs and product gaps? What are our goals as a product team? As a business overall? Reviewing these user needs, product goals, and company priorities will guide the prioritization efforts.

Draft your proposal

Once you understand your main goals, you can review the potential work against them. What work will be most impactful? What discovery work needs to start now in order to enable Engineering down the line? What tactical work is necessary to enable other teams? From here you can develop a rough outline for the quarter, mapping out tactical work, discovery work, and any organizational work.

Gather input from stakeholders

Then you can set up a session with stakeholders to share your proposed roadmap and gather input. Do they agree with your prioritization? Is your scope of work realistic? Is anything missing? Having a cross-functional and productive conversation around your proposal is highly beneficial — ensuring you’re focusing on the right things and everyone is aligned and in agreement.