# Product roadmap presentation: one roadmap, four audiences

> How to prepare a product roadmap presentation: why share the roadmap at all, how one roadmap becomes a view for the board, sales, engineering and customers, internal vs external roadmaps, the Osborne effect of a public roadmap, and how to present without overpromising.

- Course: [Outcome-Based Product Roadmaps](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps.md)
- Module: A living roadmap
- Lesson 14/15, ~42 min
- Source: https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/presenting-the-roadmap

## Four audiences in one week

**Alex Tutor:** Your roadmap for CatChow is agreed. Now it has to leave the product team and reach everyone else, so today is about the product roadmap presentation.

**Sofia:** The plan is agreed. Now Sofia and I present it four times: sales and marketing on Wednesday, engineering on Thursday, PurrPoint on Friday, the board on the 16th.

**Alex Tutor:** Why present it at all? The people who matter were at the workshop.

**Sofia:** Not all of them. Lucy's engineers weren't there, and neither were the salespeople who talk to clinics every day.

**Alex Tutor:** Right. You share a roadmap for three reasons: **inspiration**, so people see why the work matters; **alignment**, so every team can plan around it; and **ownership**, because people care more about a plan they've had a hand in.

**Sofia:** So, four different decks?

**Alex Tutor:** One roadmap, several views. The foundation stays the same for everyone: vision, objectives, themes and timeframes. What changes is what you add on top for each audience.

![Four people view one model house: one through binoculars from afar, one with a magnifying glass at the pipes, one at the front door, one peering into a room.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/presenting-the-roadmap-illustration-2.webp)

*Change the foundation, and every view changes with it.*

**Sofia:** Four separate roadmaps would drift apart within a month.

**Alex Tutor:** Within a week. And then two teams plan around two different stories.

> **Exercise:** To keep every audience satisfied, it's best to maintain a separate roadmap for each one: the board, sales, engineering and customers.

## A roadmap for executives: the board

**Ian:** Last time the board asked what customers get. This time they'll ask whether it's working. I'll have fifteen minutes.

**Sofia:** Fifteen minutes for a whole roadmap?

**Alex Tutor:** Boards think in investments and returns. Show the vision, the two objectives with their key results, what's changed in the market, and what the money buys. Keep the details on hand, not on the slides.

**Sofia:** And if they ask about the portal or the quiz?

**Alex Tutor:** Then you answer, briefly. But notice: a board's appetite for detail falls as its trust grows. When directors dig into features, they're usually worried about how the work is going.

**Sofia:** So the less they need to ask, the better it's going.

**Alex Tutor:** Usually. Your job is to make progress easy to see: what moved, what didn't, and what happens next.

> **Exercise:** Ian has fifteen minutes with the board. Which content fits best?

**Alex Tutor:** One more board scene. Imagine the meeting has started and the directors' questions take a turn.

> **Exercise:** At the board meeting, two directors spend ten minutes questioning how the subscriber quiz is designed. What does this most likely tell Sofia?

## Sales and marketing

**Brandon:** Marketing wants to print brochures for the conference on 23 May: “The CatChow clinic portal, now live.” Can I tell them yes?

**Sofia:** The portal isn't even on the plan. The form is.

**Alex Tutor:** Sales and marketing need a different view: the stage of each theme, which customers it's for, how confident we are, and the external events they plan around.

**Alex Tutor:** Before the brochures: which of these belong in that view?

> **Exercise:** Which of these belong in the sales and marketing view of CatChow's roadmap? Select all that apply.

**Alex Tutor:** Confidence matters most before money is spent. Brochures, ads, a launch at the stand: wait until the item is being built and confidence is high, not while it's still being tested.

**Sofia:** By May the form should be with all PurrPoint clinics and on its way to the others.

**Alex Tutor:** So marketing can plan the stand around the outcome: clinics reordering without a phone call. What to print gets decided at the March review, once the form has run in all 14 PurrPoint clinics.

**Brandon:** An outcome on a brochure. Fine, as long as it has a real clinic's numbers on it.

**Alex Tutor:** Brandon has to answer marketing today. Two replies he could pass on; which one fits?

> **Exercise:** Marketing needs an answer about the 23 May conference today. Which reply should Brandon, the key account manager, pass on?

## Engineering

**Lucy:** My team reads the roadmap differently. They want to know what they're building, in what order, what it depends on and what might go wrong.

**Alex Tutor:** Then their view adds the likely features under each theme, the stage, the dependencies and the risks. Features go to them for feasibility feedback, not as orders with deadlines.

**Sofia:** Dependencies: clinic orders move to the new system, then the form reaches all 14 PurrPoint clinics, then the other partner clinics.

**Lucy:** And risks: the parts of the old system nobody documented. Oh, and put gift cards on it. Twelve people used them last year, and we test them in every release.

**Alex Tutor:** That's **technical debt**: old shortcuts and features that slow down every future change. Give it a line on the engineering view, so it competes for time in the open.

**Sofia:** The board doesn't need to see gift cards.

**Alex Tutor:** No. Same roadmap, different depth. Here's the test: pick the version of one theme that Lucy's team should see.

> **Exercise:** Which version of the clinic theme belongs on the engineering view?

## Internal vs external roadmap

**Sofia:** Friday is PurrPoint. Brandon has been waiting for a page he can show them since the first week.

**Alex Tutor:** Customers ask for features and dates. What they usually need is proof that you've heard them, that you're working on their problem, and that you'll tell them more when you know it.

**Alex Tutor:** Picture two scales: how much detail, and whether the reader is inside the company or outside. That's the split between an **internal and an external roadmap**: internal views for the board, sales and engineering carry detail and new directions; an external roadmap for customers or the public shows far less of both.

![Engineering sees the most detail, then sales and marketing, then the board; outside, PurrPoint sees only what changes for its clinics and a public page shows direction only.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/diagrams/m5-l2-detail-and-distance.png)

*One foundation, different depth for each reader.*

**Ian:** And the roadmap page on our website? No other pet food brand has one.

**Sofia:** Every competitor could read it. And if we announced a clinic portal, new clinics might wait for it instead of signing now.

**Alex Tutor:** That's the **Osborne effect**: announcing a better product too early, so customers stop buying the current one and wait for the next. Sales drop before the new thing even exists. Add the risk of overpromising, and a public roadmap has to earn its place.

![Shoppers turn away from a product on the shelf to stare at a poster of a shinier future product in the window, their wallets staying closed.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/presenting-the-roadmap-illustration-3.webp)

**Alex Tutor:** Check Ian's idea against that.

> **Exercise:** Announcing the clinic portal on CatChow's website now would help sales: clinics would see something better is coming and sign up sooner.

**Sofia:** So not yet. But Ian still wants clinics to see that we deliver.

> **Exercise:** Match each audience to what its view adds to the common foundation.

## How to prepare a roadmap presentation

**Sofia:** Four meetings. How do I prepare without writing four decks from scratch?

**Alex Tutor:** Four questions before each one. Who's in the room, and what have they seen before? What do you want from them: input, agreement, or just awareness? What do they care about? And which parts of the roadmap answer that?

**Sofia:** And the order of the talk itself?

**Alex Tutor:** Start with why: the vision, and a real story, like the admin who used to lose her Monday mornings on the phone. Then progress since last time. Then the near term. Then the longer term.

**Sofia:** Why progress before the plan?

**Alex Tutor:** Because trust comes from what you've done, not from what you promise. A plan lands better right after proof.

![A presenter sets a delivered cat-food box on the table, then unrolls a plan behind it while the audience leans in.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/presenting-the-roadmap-illustration-4.webp)

*Trust comes from what you've done; the plan lands better after the proof.*

> **Exercise:** Put the parts of the board presentation in order.

## Two minutes for the board

**Sofia:** Ian wants his opening from me: two minutes on why we're doing this and what has moved since October. The board will read the rest.

**Alex Tutor:** Why and progress, then. Not the plan yet. And use real numbers, including the ones that haven't moved. Churn hasn't, and they'll know it.

**Sofia:** Honest about churn, proud of the pilot.

**Alex Tutor:** And short. If Ian can't say it in two minutes, the board won't remember it.

> **Exercise:** Since October: reorder reminder emails went live; in the PurrPoint pilot 8 of 9 orders came in without a call, and stock-outs fell from 6 to 5 a month; monthly churn is still 9%. Write the two-minute board opening for Ian, CatChow's CEO (3–5 sentences): why, and what has moved since October. Be honest about what hasn't moved.

## A page for PurrPoint

**Sofia:** Now the promise from the first week: a version of the roadmap PurrPoint can actually see.

**Alex Tutor:** Write it for their procurement manager and her admins. What changes for their clinics, what we've delivered, what comes next and on what condition, and the partner disclaimer.

**Sofia:** The admins say an order now takes about five minutes instead of a twenty-minute call. That goes in.

**Sofia:** And February for all 14 clinics, once clinic orders move in January. Do I put the condition in?

**Alex Tutor:** Yes. A condition they know about is a plan; a condition they discover later is a broken promise.

**Alex Tutor:** And nothing about subscribers, other clinics or Later. It's their page.

> **Exercise:** PurrPoint is a chain of 14 vet clinics. In the pilot, an order now takes about five minutes instead of a twenty-minute call; all 14 clinics are planned to order online from February, once clinic orders move to CatChow's new warehouse system in January. Write the partner version of the roadmap for PurrPoint (6–10 short lines): what changes for its clinics, what has been delivered, what comes next and on what condition, and a partner disclaimer.

## Someone else's four audiences

**Alex Tutor:** The online bookstore that wanted to publish its twelve-month roadmap came back to me. Now the owners, the web team, publishers and readers all want to see it.

**Sofia:** The one with seventeen items in Later?

**Alex Tutor:** The same. They've cleaned it up since. Now the question is who sees what.

**Sofia:** One foundation, four views, and a public page that has to earn its place.

**Alex Tutor:** Plan it for them.

> **Exercise:** Plan how Chapterly shares one roadmap with four audiences.

## What to remember

**Sofia:** The board gets progress, sales gets confidence, Lucy's team gets dependencies, and PurrPoint gets its own page. All from one roadmap.

**Alex Tutor:** The same story, told at the depth each reader needs. Change the foundation, and every view changes with it.

> **Key ideas**
>
> - Share the roadmap for **inspiration**, **alignment** and **ownership**: people see why the work matters, plan around it and care about what they helped shape.
> - **One roadmap, several views**: a shared foundation (vision, objectives, themes, timeframes) plus what each audience needs. Separate roadmaps drift apart.
> - The board: objectives and progress, the market, the money; less detail as trust grows. Sales and marketing: stage, target customers, confidence, external events. Engineering: likely features, dependencies, risks, **technical debt**.
> - Customers and partners: what changes for them, a track record, next steps with their conditions and a clear **disclaimer**. The further out the reader, the less detail; watch for overpromising, the **Osborne effect** and competitors.
> - Prepare with four questions (who is in the room, what you want from them, what they care about, which parts answer it), then tell it in order: why, progress, near term, longer term.

**Alex Tutor:** Next time, the last lesson of the course: keeping the roadmap true once it's out there. Review rhythm, change requests and the rules for changing course.

- Previous lesson: [Alignment and buy-in with stakeholders](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/alignment-and-buy-in.md)
- Next lesson: [Keeping it fresh and rolling it out in the organization](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/keeping-it-fresh.md)

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