# Going deeper: features, stages and confidence levels

> When features belong on an outcome-based roadmap and how that differs from a feature roadmap, how to show stage of development and confidence levels without false precision, which extras each reader needs, and version 3 of CatChow's roadmap.

- Course: [Outcome-Based Product Roadmaps](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps.md)
- Module: From needs to themes
- Lesson 9/15, ~42 min
- Source: https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/features-stage-confidence

## Lucy's team reads the roadmap

**Alex Tutor:** The roadmap you're building for CatChow has reached a new audience: Lucy, who leads the engineers.

**Lucy:** My engineers read the roadmap this week. Their first question: which of these are we actually building, and how sure are we? Themes alone don't tell them.

**Sofia:** Module 1 promised us the extras for exactly this moment: features, stage, confidence, target customers, product areas.

**Alex Tutor:** The **optional extras**. Same rule as then: add one only when a particular reader needs it. Lucy's team needs to know what's being built, so start with features, without turning the page back into a feature roadmap.

**Sofia:** But we spent weeks taking features off the page.

**Alex Tutor:** We took them off as the goal. They can come back as answers. A **feature** on an outcome-based roadmap always sits under the theme it serves, so the “why” stays visible above it.

**Sofia:** So the reminders never stand alone in Now. They sit under “never run out”.

> **Exercise:** Where do the reorder reminders go on version 3 of CatChow's roadmap?

## Feature roadmap or themes: when a feature earns its place

**Alex Tutor:** A **feature roadmap** lists the features a team plans to ship, often with dates, and treats shipping them as the goal. An outcome-based roadmap keeps themes as the goal; a feature appears only as a likely answer under one, and only for a reason.

**Alex Tutor:** There are three common reasons a feature appears. A **likely solution**: evidence points strongly to one answer. Reminders, for instance: support hears the problem, and the cancellations confirm it.

**Alex Tutor:** **Enabling work**: a system need engineering has already turned into a concrete solution, like the warehouse replacement. And **carryover**: something started earlier and not yet finished.

**Sofia:** Do we have carryover? The reminder emails, I think: Lucy's team started them in September.

**Brandon:** Then put the clinic portal under the clinic theme too. Everyone knows that's the answer.

**Alex Tutor:** Not yet: the pilot exists to find the answer. Today the portal is one candidate among several. Once the pilot points to it, it becomes a likely solution.

**Sofia:** So “someone important wants it” isn't one of the three reasons.

**Alex Tutor:** It isn't. Neither is “a competitor has it”. Those are reasons to look at the need, not to put the feature on the page.

> **Exercise:** Which of these are good reasons for a feature to appear under a theme on the roadmap? Select all that apply.

**Alex Tutor:** Here are two versions of the same Now column. Which one is outcome-based?

> **Exercise:** Two drafts of the Now column on CatChow's roadmap. Which one is an **outcome-based** roadmap rather than a **feature roadmap**?

## Stage of development: how far along is it?

**Sofia:** Lucy's engineers also asked whether the clinic theme is being built or still discussed.

**Alex Tutor:** That's **stage of development**: how far an item has come, from problem to solution. Pick a few stages that fit your team, and define each one once.

![Four steps of making a birdhouse in a row: a pencil sketch, a cardboard model, a half-built wooden box and a finished birdhouse with a bird on top.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/features-stage-confidence-illustration-2.webp)

**Sofia:** Let me try. Exploring: we're studying the problem. Testing: a few customers try a solution. Building: the solution is chosen and in development. Refining: it's live, and we adjust it while watching the signal.

**Alex Tutor:** Good set: short, and each stage tells the reader something different. Stage also shows what's still a theme: in Exploring there's no feature to name yet.

**Sofia:** So the new-owner theme is Exploring, the clinic theme is Testing from November, and the reminders are Building.

**Alex Tutor:** And sales can read it directly: Exploring means don't mention it to clients, Building means it's safe to prepare.

> **Exercise:** Match each **stage of development** on CatChow's roadmap to what it tells a reader.

## Confidence levels: how sure are we?

**Alex Tutor:** The second question from Lucy's team: how sure are we? That's the **confidence level**: how likely an item is to happen in its timeframe, in roughly that form.

**Sofia:** Don't the columns already say that? Now is surer than Later.

**Alex Tutor:** They imply it. Written down, it's impossible to miss: say, Now about 80%, Next about 50%, Later about 20%. Nobody should ever claim 100%.

**Lucy:** Per column, fine. But please don't make me put 73% on the warehouse. I'd be making it up, and people would treat it as measured.

**Alex Tutor:** Fair point. A precise number looks like data when it's really a gut feeling. That's **false precision**, and it makes a plan look surer than it is.

![A serious person measures a soft floating cloud with a precision caliper and a magnifying glass.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/features-stage-confidence-illustration-3.webp)

*A precise number on a guess is still a guess, only better dressed.*

**Alex Tutor:** An alternative is evidence levels: what do we actually have? Our own opinion, a few requests, a pattern in the data, or results from customers who tried it.

**Sofia:** So “Testing in two clinics, first results in December” says more than “73%”.

> **Exercise:** Giving each roadmap item a precise confidence percentage, such as 73%, makes the plan more trustworthy.

## The confidence line

**Sofia:** Now still holds more than Lucy's team can surely finish by December.

**Alex Tutor:** Then draw a **confidence line** inside Now. Above it: what the team commits to this quarter. Below it: what they'll reach for if things go well.

![A shelf divided by an orange rope: boxes above it are packed and sealed, boxes below stand open, ready to slide onto the next shelf.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/features-stage-confidence-illustration-4.webp)

*Items below the line can move without anyone breaking a promise.*

**Sofia:** And if the items below the line don't happen?

**Alex Tutor:** They move to the top of Next, and nobody has broken a promise. Everyone could see in advance which items were the bonus.

**Sofia:** Reminders, the pilot and the warehouse work above the line. Flexible delivery dates below?

**Alex Tutor:** That's how I'd draw it. Check it with Lucy, though: she knows her team's capacity better than either of us.

![Above the confidence line in Now: reminders, the clinic pilot and warehouse work the team commits to; flexible delivery dates sit below and move to the top of Next if not reached.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/diagrams/m3-l3-confidence-line.png)

*Everyone can see in advance which items are the bonus.*

> **Exercise:** What does it mean when an item sits below the confidence line in Now?

**Alex Tutor:** Lucy will soon offer target dates for two Now items. Before she does, choose the rule yourself: where do target dates belong?

> **Exercise:** Which items on version 3 of CatChow's roadmap should carry a **target date**?

## Who it's for and where it lives

**Brandon:** Can the clinic items be marked somehow? When a clinic director calls me, I want to find what concerns her in a second.

**Alex Tutor:** That's **target customers**: tag each theme with the group it serves, such as subscribers, new owners or partner clinics. It also shows whether some group is quietly being neglected.

**Sofia:** And product areas?

**Alex Tutor:** **Product areas** tag the part of the product: subscriptions, clinic ordering, warehouse and delivery. Useful when several teams own different parts. For one small team, it's often just more ink.

**Alex Tutor:** Before Brandon picks his extras, a quick check on product areas.

> **Exercise:** Every product roadmap should tag its items with product areas, because they always show readers which part of the product a theme touches.

**Sofia:** So each reader gets different extras. Lucy: features and stages. Brandon: target customers and stages.

**Alex Tutor:** And Ian and the board: confidence per column and little else. Add everything for everyone, and the page reads like a project plan again.

> **Exercise:** Brandon, the key account manager, uses the internal roadmap to prepare for calls with clinic directors. Which optional extras help him most?

## Dates, only where we're sure

**Lucy:** One more thing. For the two Now items my team is sure about, I'll give target dates: the reminder emails in the second half of November, the pilot's first review in early December.

**Ian:** Dates! Finally. And the warehouse?

**Sofia:** Not yet. Lucy's team will know after the data-migration test in November.

**Alex Tutor:** That's the deal from the first week: target dates only where confidence is high, and only in Now. A date anywhere else is a guess people will remember as a promise.

**Sofia:** Brandon will ask why the reminders get a date and his clinic rollout doesn't.

**Alex Tutor:** He will. Write him an answer he can accept: why these two, why not the rollout, and when he'll know more.

> **Exercise:** Brandon asks why the reminder emails get a target date while the rollout to all 14 PurrPoint clinics doesn't. Write Sofia's reply (2–3 sentences).

## Evidence instead of percentages

**Sofia:** For Next I still have “about 50%”. Can I say something more useful about the new-owner theme?

**Alex Tutor:** Say what the confidence rests on. What do you know for sure, and what is still a guess?

**Sofia:** We know the 250 calls a month are real. We don't know yet whether a quiz or advice from support would help more.

**Alex Tutor:** Then that's your note: the problem is proven, the solution is open. One or two sentences, no percentage.

> **Exercise:** What the team knows: support gets about 250 calls a month from new owners unsure which food to choose, and nobody has tested yet whether a quiz or advice would help more. Write the **confidence** note for the Next theme “New owners pick the right food on their first order” (1–2 sentences), based on evidence rather than a percentage.

## Roadmap, version 3

**Alex Tutor:** Time to put the module together. Version 3: themes rebuilt from needs, the columns with their meaning and confidence, and the extras your readers asked for.

**Sofia:** Who is it for? Lucy's team, Brandon and Ian each want different extras.

**Alex Tutor:** One internal version for everyone at CatChow. Choose the extras most readers need, and say which one you leave out and why.

**Sofia:** Features only under themes, dates only on the two sure items, a stage for everything.

**Alex Tutor:** And the disclaimer, updated. Check each theme once more: need, objective, key result.

> **Exercise:** Write version 3 of CatChow's roadmap.

## What to remember

**Sofia:** Lucy's team sees what's being built and how sure we are. Brandon finds his clinics in a second. Ian gets dates where they're safe.

**Alex Tutor:** Each extra answers a question a real reader asked. That's the test for adding one.

> **Key ideas**
>
> - A **feature** appears only under the theme it serves: as a likely solution, as enabling work or as carryover. “Someone important wants it” isn't a reason.
> - **Stage of development** shows how far an item has come; use a few stages, such as exploring, testing, building and refining, each defined once.
> - Show **confidence** per column (about 80%, 50%, 20%) or with a confidence line in Now. Precise per-item percentages are false precision: describe the evidence instead.
> - Target customers and product areas help particular readers; add each extra only when someone needs it.
> - Target dates go only on high-confidence items in Now.

**Alex Tutor:** That wraps up module 3. In module 4 we'll decide what actually fits in Now: criteria, scoring and saying no, starting with the loyalty points the founders keep asking about.

- Previous lesson: [Timeframes and the roadmap disclaimer](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/timeframes-and-disclaimer.md)
- Next lesson: [Feature prioritization: why gut feeling fails](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/why-gut-feeling-fails.md)

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