# Gathering inputs: life cycle, market, customers, stakeholders > What to find out before drawing a roadmap: the product's life cycle stage, the market and customers behind every request, and what each stakeholder gives and needs, merged into one short list. - Course: [Outcome-Based Product Roadmaps](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps.md) - Module: The why behind the roadmap - Lesson 4/15, ~37 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/gathering-inputs ## Monday after Friday **Alex Tutor:** A new week on CatChow's product team. Your first roadmap page has reached Ian. **Sofia:** Friday went better than expected. Ian read the whole page and didn't ask for a month next to each feature. **Ian:** I read it in two minutes, which is a good sign. But the board will ask why: why these two objectives, why now, and where the numbers come from. I need answers by the 13th, the day before the board meets. **Sofia:** Where the numbers come from… Honestly, some of them came from staring at the spreadsheet for a long time. **Alex Tutor:** Then this week is about the “why”. A roadmap is only as good as what goes into it. Before the vision and the objectives come the **inputs**: what you know about the product, the market, the customers and the people around you. **Sofia:** I have forty requests. Aren't those inputs? **Alex Tutor:** They're opinions about solutions: useful, but thin. Inputs explain why those requests exist. Four sources: where the product is in its life, the market around it, its customers and its stakeholders. > **Exercise:** Ian expects the board to ask where the roadmap's numbers come from. What is the best way for Sofia to prepare? ## Where CatChow is in its life **Alex Tutor:** First source: the **product life cycle**. The classic model has four stages: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Some models use five, adding expansion into a nearby need. The labels matter less than the question: what does this stage ask of the roadmap? **Sofia:** And what does each one ask? **Alex Tutor:** At introduction almost everything is a guess, so the roadmap is a list of things to learn. In growth you scale what works and fix what breaks at volume. In maturity you keep customers and protect margins. In decline you plan an honest exit. ![Four potted plants in a row, a seedling, a fast-growing sprout, a mature plant and a drooping one, each with a gardener doing a different task.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/gathering-inputs-illustration-2.webp) *One company can have a product at each stage, and each asks for a different plan.* **Sofia:** CatChow has had subscribers for years, and churn matters more than sign-ups now. So… maturity? **Alex Tutor:** For the subscription, yes, or close to it. But the vet clinic channel is young: 54 clinics, and every order still goes through a phone call. That's growth, and it needs different work. **Sofia:** Oh. So that's why Ian has two objectives: one part of the business has to keep people, the other has to grow. **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. One company can run products at different stages at the same time. Write the stage down: it explains your choices before anyone asks. > **Exercise:** Match each **product life cycle** stage to what the roadmap should emphasize. **Alex Tutor:** One more check on the stages before we look at the market. > **Exercise:** A company is always at one life cycle stage, so its whole roadmap should have one emphasis. ## The market around the product **Lucy:** Quick question: is the market part really for me? I'd rather know what to build than who our competitors are. **Alex Tutor:** Fair, but the market changes what's worth building. And it's more than competitors: it's the whole ecosystem. Who else serves our customers, who we depend on, and how the business makes money. **Sofia:** For us that's pet shops, supermarkets, online marketplaces… and the clinics themselves? **Alex Tutor:** Right: clinics are both customers and a channel. A vet chooses the prescription diet, so the clinic decides which brand a pet owner leaves with. That's why the channel matters more than its size suggests. **Alex Tutor:** Then the money: who pays, what it costs to serve them, where the margin is. A one-page business model sketch is enough. Without it, you'd be guessing which problems are worth solving. **Sofia:** So if a supermarket chain launched its own cat food subscription, my Next column could change overnight. **Alex Tutor:** It could. That's why the market is an input, not background reading. > **Exercise:** Market and business model inputs are for marketing; the product team only needs the list of feature requests. ## Who buys, who uses **Brandon:** Good news! PurrPoint's procurement manager said yes to the pilot in two clinics instead of an April date. No feature in the contract. The pilot starts in November. **Sofia:** That's great! So PurrPoint is happy? **Alex Tutor:** The person who buys is. Notice who said yes: the procurement manager signs the contract, but she won't place a single order. The admins do, every week. In B2B the **buyer** and the **user** are often different people. **Sofia:** And for cat owners it's the same person? **Alex Tutor:** Mostly: the owner pays and orders. Strictly speaking, the end user is the cat, and cats have strong opinions about taste. **Alex Tutor:** Beyond buyer and user, list the roles, meaning what each person does with the product, and the segments, meaning groups with different needs: new owners, long-term subscribers, partner clinics. > **Exercise:** The pilot starts in two PurrPoint clinics. Whose behavior will show whether the clinic theme is working? ## Stakeholders: what each gives and needs **Alex Tutor:** Next source: **stakeholders**, anyone who shapes, funds, builds, sells, supports or depends on the product. Each of them brings you something and needs something back from the roadmap. **Lucy:** Then here's mine. You know the warehouse system has to go. What isn't written anywhere: if the pilot grows past two clinics before we replace it, orders will start getting lost. **Alex Tutor:** That's exactly the kind of input nobody puts in a spreadsheet. Engineering tells you what's feasible and what's fragile, and it needs the reasons behind the work to plan ahead. ![Around a table, a salesperson, an engineer, a support agent and a manager each slide a jigsaw piece to the middle, where a cat and a clinic take shape.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/gathering-inputs-illustration-3.webp) **Sofia:** So support tells me why people call, Brandon tells me why clients sign or leave, and Ian brings the strategy and the budget? **Alex Tutor:** Yes. Then decide how closely to work with each. A common tool is a **power/interest grid**: how much say someone has over the roadmap, and how much they care about it. **Alex Tutor:** High power and high interest: work closely. High power, low interest: keep satisfied with short updates. Low power, high interest: keep informed. Low on both: check in now and then. Our project-management course has a whole lesson on the [stakeholder map](/courses/project-management-without-bureaucracy/stakeholder-map). ![Stakeholders with high power and high interest: work closely; high power, low interest: keep satisfied; low power, high interest: keep informed; low on both: check in.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/diagrams/m2-l1-power-interest-grid.png) *How closely to work with each stakeholder.* > **Exercise:** Sofia sketches a power/interest grid for the roadmap. Which placements make sense? Select all that apply. **Alex Tutor:** Brandon offers his sales list. How would you ask everyone for input instead? > **Exercise:** Which request to support, sales and engineering will give Sofia inputs she can merge and rank? ## Problems, not features **Brandon:** If you need input from sales, I can send you our list. Twelve things clients asked for this year. **Sofia:** Twelve more features. Great. **Alex Tutor:** Ask differently. Instead of “what should we build?”, ask each team for its top problems with evidence: how often it happens, who it hurts and what it costs. Feature ideas are welcome, with the problem attached. **Sofia:** And then I merge the lists? **Alex Tutor:** Merge them and look for repeats. When support, sales and the data all point at the same problem, it's probably real. A problem only one loud person mentions still goes on the list, just lower. ![Three stacks of cards from three desks are spread side by side, and the same orange card appears in every stack.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/gathering-inputs-illustration-4.webp) **Alex Tutor:** Keep the result short: five to ten problems, each with its source. That list feeds your themes and, later, your key results. **Alex Tutor:** Picture the replies already in. How would you rank these two problems in the merged list? > **Exercise:** Support, the cancellation survey and billing data all point to subscribers running out before the next delivery. One founder keeps asking for loyalty points at every meeting. How should Sofia rank the two in the merged list? > **Exercise:** Write the message Sofia sends to the support team, Brandon and Lucy, asking for their input for the roadmap (2–4 sentences). Ask for problems and evidence, not a feature list, and give a deadline that works before the board meeting. ## Why these two objectives **Ian:** One question I can already hear: why subscriptions and clinics, and not just one of them? Give me something I can say in three sentences. **Sofia:** The life cycle! The subscription is mature, and the clinic channel is growing. **Alex Tutor:** Good start. Add what each stage means for the money: in a mature business, keeping a subscriber is cheaper than finding a new one; in a growing channel, every clinic brings pet owners we'd never reach alone. **Sofia:** And the market point: vets choose the prescription diet, so clinics decide which brand owners buy. **Alex Tutor:** That's your third sentence. Stage, market, money: three inputs, three sentences. Write it for him. > **Exercise:** Write the 2–3 sentences Ian can say when the board asks why the roadmap focuses on subscription revenue and the vet clinic channel. Use at least two kinds of input: life cycle stage, market, customers or stakeholders. ## Case: inputs at an accounting SaaS **Alex Tutor:** Let's test the method on someone else's product. My friend at the small accounting SaaS is collecting inputs for her next roadmap too. **Sofia:** The one whose director sent a dated feature list to clients? **Alex Tutor:** That one. They learned from it. Now she has a pile of notes from everyone and needs a one-page summary before anyone talks about features. **Sofia:** Life cycle, customers, stakeholders, and problems instead of features. Got it. **Alex Tutor:** One hint: look for the problem that shows up in more than one person's notes. > **Exercise:** Summarize the inputs for Docketly's next roadmap. ## What to remember **Sofia:** So by the 13th I won't just have numbers. I'll know where each one comes from and who told me. **Alex Tutor:** And when someone asks “why this?”, you'll answer with evidence instead of opinions. That's what inputs are for. > **Key ideas** > > - Before drawing a roadmap, gather **inputs**: the product's life cycle stage, the market, the customers and the stakeholders. > - The **product life cycle** stage sets the emphasis: learning at introduction, scaling in growth, keeping customers in maturity, an honest exit in decline. > - The market input covers the ecosystem and the business model: who else serves your customers and how the product makes money. > - Tell **buyers** from **users**; in B2B they are often different people with different needs. > - Every **stakeholder** gives something and needs something: map them on a power/interest grid, ask for problems with evidence and merge the answers into a short list. **Alex Tutor:** Next time: your draft vision. We'll make it short enough to remember and settle whether the clinics belong in it. - Previous lesson: [Anatomy of a product roadmap: five components and an example](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/roadmap-components.md) - Next lesson: [Product vision and value proposition](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/product-vision.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.