A Roadmapping Session provides you with your “blueprint” that lays out exactly what your app will look like and how it will function.
You could build your app without one, but - having built software for 20+ years - it’ll take you longer and be more expensive if you don’t. That’s because it’s faster and cheaper to change wireframes and requirements on a page instead of changing code that’s been written.
If you want good ROI on your developer budget (who doesn’t?), it’s a good idea of have a reasonable plan before you start writing code that:
- you’ve aligned on
- can be easily communicated to your developers
- describes what “done” looks like
What’s the outcome of a Roadmapping session?
The outcome of the Roadmapping session is to have a plan that outlines:
- The key problems you want to solve
- Wireframes for any screens you need
- Functional requirements describing exactly how the software will work along with some technical implementation research(where do we store documents? What happens when you click on this button? Do we use a third party API for chat or build our own? Etc)
- Identify potential risks along with approaches to mitigate them
- When appropriate, dive into potential technical approach to ensure the product is built the way the business needs
- Provide a broader product direction for after your app is built
Roadmapping is also a great way to de-risk working with me AND to nail down a critical piece of your project. Even if we decide not to work together after the Roadmap is delivered, you can take your Roadmap to someone else to build your app.
How does a Roadmapping Session work?
In a Roadmapping Session we’ll:
- Sit down virtually for probably 1-4 hours, along with anybody else who needs to be in the room from your side
- Dig more deeply into who the user is and what your requirements are so I can understand them
- Talk about potential solution(s)
- Brain dump on what the app would need to do
- Identify “core” features and “nice to haves”
- Identify any compliance, technology, legal, or other requirements
- Identify apparent project risks, along with potential approaches to mitigate them
When your Roadmap is done, we’ll walk through the doc together. You can turn around and hand it back to me to build, or you can hand it off to another dev team to build.
It typically takes 2-3 weeks from our sit-down session until we walk through your Roadmap together.
I’d like to learn more about doing a Roadmap together
Great! You can drop me a line here. Let’s chat!