The reason software companies adopted agile practices was so that they could adapt their roadmaps to whatever they learned along the way.

If you learn something and do not change the roadmap, then there was no point to learning it. You might as well be doing a waterfall process. I think everyone accepts this. After all, waterfall is a myth. No one really thinks that the roadmap is set in stone.

But the business needs to plan. Marketing has events that need lead time to develop messages and material. Sales has prospects that want to know where the product is headed. Support, Training, and the Documentation team need time to get ready for new releases.

Some of this can be solved by developing support material alongside product development. For example, an embedded Product Marketing Manager can be closely following the trajectory of the roadmap and be developing messages at the same time. Even better, they can be helping to shape the roadmap from insights they get from their customer engagement.

The hard part is what to do with prospects. If you’re Apple, you never talk about what’s coming until you are ready to sell, but most of us can’t do that. Our prospects will certainly have unmet needs, and if you know you are actively working on them, it’s tough not to tell them. But, what should you say?

The truth is you don’t know the roadmap beyond the next few sprints. You are actively hoping that you learn something that will change it. New information is highly correlated with innovation.

But you are not changing your mission as easily. You know which customers you want to serve and what jobs of theirs you want to help with. So, talk about that and not the specific features you currently think will help. And talk about what you do know is coming (if you want). Even in a learning organization, the short-term roadmap should be pretty solid.

Product Development might not be able to commit to exact features, but they should commit to a learning plan, and that’s the roadmap that is safer to talk about.