Roadmap Planning
Turn business goals and customer problems into prioritized, sequenced epics and a Now/Next/Later roadmap narrative for exec and team alignment.
Overview
Roadmap Planning is an agent skill most often used in Build (also Validate, Idea) that structures epics, prioritization, sequencing, and stakeholder-ready roadmap narratives from product goals.
Install
npx skills add https://github.com/deanpeters/product-manager-skills --skill roadmap-planningWhat is this skill?
- Five-phase flow: gather inputs, define epics with hypotheses, prioritize, sequence, communicate
- Example workflow uses RICE with strategic overrides for enterprise expansion
- Effort sizing on epics (e.g., M/L) and dependency-aware quarterly placement
- Exec narrative tying Q1 to retention vs enterprise themes
- Publishes internal (e.g., Confluence) and external Now/Next/Later views
- Five-phase planning flow (gather, epics, prioritize, sequence, communicate)
- Example catalog of 12 epics with effort estimates
Adoption & trust: 2k installs on skills.sh; 5k GitHub stars; 3/3 security scanners passed (skills.sh audits).
What problem does it solve?
You have scattered goals and customer pain but no prioritized, dependency-aware roadmap story execs and engineering can follow.
Who is it for?
Solo SaaS founders doing annual or quarterly planning with retention, expansion, and technical debt tradeoffs.
Skip if: Pure engineering task breakdown for a single sprint with no product strategy inputs.
When should I use this skill?
Annual or quarterly planning when you need epics, prioritization, sequencing, and stakeholder-ready roadmap communication.
What do I get? / Deliverables
You get sequenced quarterly themes, scored epics, and aligned internal/external roadmaps with explicit strategic rationale.
- Prioritized epic list with hypotheses
- Quarterly sequenced roadmap
- Internal and external roadmap publications
Recommended Skills
Journey fit
Spans multiple journey phases - primary shelf plus alternate fits below.
Roadmaps are built and maintained while you are actively shipping product—canonical shelf is Build PM even though inputs start earlier in discovery. PM subphase matches epic definition, RICE scoring, quarterly sequencing, and stakeholder communication outputs.
Where it fits
Consolidate competitor gaps and customer problems into inputs for epic hypotheses.
Choose Q1 bets that prove retention before committing to large mobile builds.
Score onboarding vs SSO with RICE and sequence reporting behind pipeline work.
Tie roadmap themes to churn reduction initiatives called out in planning narratives.
How it compares
Structured PM roadmap ritual—not a generic todo list or a single-feature spec skill.
Common Questions / FAQ
Who is roadmap-planning for?
Indie builders and lean product leads shipping SaaS who own prioritization without a dedicated PM team.
When should I use roadmap-planning?
In Idea when framing goals from research; in Validate when scoping what to prove first; in Build during quarterly planning, epic grooming, and exec roadmap reviews.
Is roadmap-planning safe to install?
It is documentation-style PM guidance; review the Security Audits panel on this Prism page before installing from third-party skill sources.
SKILL.md
READMESKILL.md - Roadmap Planning
# Roadmap Examples ### Example 1: Good Roadmap Planning (SaaS Product) **Context:** Annual planning, need to align roadmap with retention and enterprise expansion goals. **Phase 1 - Gather Inputs:** - Business goals: Reduce churn from 15% to 8%, increase enterprise deals from 2/quarter to 5/quarter - Customer problems: Onboarding confusion, enterprise SSO gap, mobile access issues - Technical: Need to upgrade data pipeline for advanced reporting **Phase 2 - Define Epics:** - Wrote 12 epics with hypotheses (guided onboarding, enterprise SSO, mobile workflows, advanced reporting, etc.) - Estimated effort: Onboarding = M (3 weeks), SSO = M (4 weeks), Mobile = L (2 months) **Phase 3 - Prioritize:** - Used RICE framework (recommended by `prioritization-advisor.md`) - Scored: Onboarding (24,000), SSO (675), Mobile (2,000), Reporting (1,000) - Strategic override: Boosted SSO priority (critical for enterprise expansion) **Phase 4 - Sequence:** - Q1: Guided Onboarding, Enterprise SSO, Mobile Workflows - Q2: Advanced Reporting (depends on Data Pipeline in Q1), Slack Integration - Q3: Mobile App (depends on API Redesign) **Phase 5 - Communicate:** - Presented to execs: "Q1 focuses on retention (onboarding) and enterprise expansion (SSO)" - Feedback: "Can we add pricing page redesign to Q2?" → Adjusted roadmap - Published: Internal roadmap (Confluence), external roadmap (Now/Next/Later) **Outcome:** Clear, aligned roadmap with strategic narrative. --- ### Example 2: Bad Roadmap Planning (Feature List) **Context:** PM creates roadmap alone, based on stakeholder requests. **Phase 1 - Gather Inputs:** Skipped (no business goals reviewed) **Phase 2 - Define Epics:** Listed features requested by sales, marketing, CS **Phase 3 - Prioritize:** Prioritized by "who shouted loudest" **Phase 4 - Sequence:** Threw features into Q1, Q2, Q3 with no rationale **Phase 5 - Communicate:** Presented feature list to execs **Why this failed:** - No strategic narrative ("Why are we building this?") - No customer problems framed - No hypotheses or success metrics - Roadmap felt like random feature list **Fix with roadmap planning workflow:** - **Phase 1:** Review business goals (reduce churn, increase enterprise) - **Phase 2:** Turn feature requests into epics with hypotheses - **Phase 3:** Prioritize by RICE (impact + effort), not politics - **Phase 4:** Sequence logically by dependencies, business goals - **Phase 5:** Present with narrative: "Q1 = Retention, Q2 = Enterprise Expansion" --- --- name: roadmap-planning description: Plan a strategic roadmap across prioritization, epic definition, stakeholder alignment, and sequencing. Use when turning strategy into a release plan that teams can execute. intent: >- Guide product managers through strategic roadmap planning by orchestrating prioritization, epic definition, stakeholder alignment, and release sequencing skills into a structured process. Use this to move from disconnected feature requests to a cohesive, outcome-driven roadmap that aligns stakeholders, sequences work logically, and communicates strategic intent—avoiding "feature factory" roadmaps that lack strategic narrative or customer-centric framing. type: workflow theme: strategy-positioning best_for: - "Building a strategic roadmap that survives exec review" - "Prioritizing competing initiatives across multiple teams" - "Planning and sequencing work for the next quarter or half-year" scenarios: - "I have 15 competing initiatives and need to build a Q2 roadmap my exec team will actually approve" - "I'm planning our 6-month product roadmap and need to sequence work across 3 teams" estimated_time: "45-90 min" --- ## Purpose Guide product managers through strategic roadmap planning by orchestrating prioritization, epic definition, stakeholder alignment, and release sequencing skills into a structured process. Use this to move from disconnected feature requests to a cohesive, outcome-driven roadmap that aligns stakehol