Roadmap

A roadmap or a community roadmap is what direction is defined for the community to follow. A roadmap is what determines the next steps that will be taken for the betterment of the community. It’s often strategized by important decision-makers who ensure that the roadmap aligns well with the goals or purpose.

A roadmap is usually extremely detailed and constantly updated with new learnings or decisions. It includes critical thought leadership, project plans, timelines (specific and tentative), activities, metrics, and resources.

Why should you have a community roadmap?

• A roadmap ensures that everyone involved in building the community is on the same page about everything, literally.
• Makes everyone aware of their responsibilities and gives them a path to help take ownership of their work in the long term.
• Prioritizes what’s essential for the goal of the community and makes sound decisions accordingly.
• Working with the community means you have to deal with a lot of noise that can cloud your judgment. Roadmap jumps in as a torchbearer at that point.
• Plan your next move so you don’t miss out on the minor details. Chaotic execution leads to a whole lot of running around and not so much focusing on what’s important.

A lot of brand communities have recently started maintaining a public roadmap. It’s referred to as  ‘building-in-public’ and means to have a strategy of making your community aware of where the company is headed. It has proven to be a beautiful metric as sometimes the community can help steer the ship in the right direction by giving their input. Given that a roadmap’s eventual goal is often about being well aligned with the community, building-in-public directly lets you know what they want and how to get there.

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