Healthee Innovation, Technology & Agility

How do you make sure all teams are on the same page when creating a product roadmap? 

Making sure everyone is aligned actually starts even before the roadmap is created. Building a roadmap means maintaining an ongoing relationship with stakeholders to understand their needs and pain points, which is a daily effort. The product roadmap is essentially the explicit plan that prioritizes these needs within the constraints of resources. 

At Healthee, we follow a business roadmap created by the leadership team, which we translate into product strategy and objectives. Each quarter, we set objectives, key results and initiatives to achieve them. This process starts about a month before the current quarter ends and involves stakeholders, development teams and leaders. Once finalized, the roadmap is shared across the company, ensuring it’s accessible to everyone.

How do you maintain this alignment throughout the development cycle?

Maintaining alignment throughout the development cycle at Healthee involves several key practices. We use a live product roadmap board that tracks objectives, key results and the breakdown of initiatives by expected work month. This board is continuously updated throughout the quarter. 

Additionally, our development cycles span two weeks, with the second week dedicated to pre-planning. During this pre-planning meeting, we set sprint goals and decide which initiatives will be prioritized based on the high-level roadmap. This is followed by an alignment session involving all developers, where we synchronize tasks for the upcoming sprint, ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

Do project needs change during the development process? When this happens, how do you reprioritize the product roadmap and keep teams aligned?

In my experience, it’s rare to work on a project that doesn’t undergo some changes during development. Features and requirements often evolve, and the key to navigating these changes is to maintain effective re-prioritization while keeping everyone informed. 

My approach begins by asking critical questions to understand the unplanned issue: What is the impact? Is there a production issue? What’s the size of the customer affected? Is this requirement critical for implementation or launch? What are the implications for business metrics and user experience? 

Once these questions are addressed and a decision is made, it’s essential to communicate the changes to stakeholders clearly, outlining any trade-offs. Prioritization is often a zero-sum game, so transparency is vital to ensure everyone remains aligned despite the changes.