How to Create Customer-Facing Roadmap
Ketika saya pertama kali diminta untuk membuat customer-facing roadmap, rasanya seperti diminta untuk memasak rendang tanpa pernah tahu bumbu apa saja yang dibutuhkan. I stared at my laptop screen for what felt like hours, wondering: "How do you even begin to map out something for people you think you understand, but maybe... don't?"
Ingat waktu dulu main Final Fantasy? Kita selalu excited dengan world map yang slowly terbuka seiring perjalanan kita. Tapi bedanya, di game kita tahu ada treasure chest di ujung sana. Di dunia nyata? Customer needs itu berubah-ubah seperti cuaca di Jakarta—unpredictable dan sometimes bikin kita basah kuyup.
The Feedback Jungle
Langkah pertama yang saya pelajari—often the hard way—adalah deep dive ke dalam feedback pelanggan. But here's the thing yang tidak ada yang bilang: it's overwhelming as hell.
Surveys, interviews, casual conversations, angry tweets, five-star reviews yang bikin kita GR, one-star reviews yang bikin kita pengen nangis. Semua itu menumpuk jadi satu big pile of voices yang kadang saling bertentangan. Ada pelanggan yang bilang "Feature A is amazing!" sementara yang lain komplain "Feature A ruined everything!"
(Pernah nggak, teman-teman, merasa seperti sedang mendengarkan 100 orang bicara bersamaan di warung kopi yang ramai? Exactly like that.)
Tapi di situ lah magic-nya. Di dalam chaos itu, ada patterns. Ada recurring themes. Ada pain points yang muncul berulang-ulang sampai kita nggak bisa ignore lagi.
Priority List: The Art of Saying No (To Almost Everything)
Setelah berhasil navigate through the feedback jungle, tahap selanjutnya yang equally challenging: menentukan priority list. This is where I learned one of the hardest lessons in product management—learning to say no.
Bayangkan kamu di restoran Padang. Ada rendang, gulai, ayam pop, dendeng, sambal hijau, sambal merah. Everything looks amazing. Tapi perut cuma satu, budget terbatas. You have to choose.
Priority list itu bukan cuma soal what to build—tapi what NOT to build. Setiap "yes" ke satu feature adalah "no" ke sepuluh features lainnya. Dan kadang, the hardest part adalah explaining kepada stakeholders kenapa feature mereka yang "super important" harus wait.
(Pro tip yang saya pelajari dari trial and error: Always frame it as "not now" instead of "no." It keeps doors open without making promises you can't keep.)
From Dreams to Action: The What, When, Who Trinity
Ini adalah bagian dimana rubber meets the road. Priority list tanpa action plan itu seperti punya wishlist Tokopedia tapi nggak pernah checkout—nice to look at, but ultimately useless.
Setiap prioritas needs to be broken down into:
What: Specifically apa yang mau kita build (bukan sekedar target yang tidak jelas seperti "improve user experience", tapi harus spesifik seperti "reduce checkout time from 5 steps to 3 steps")
When: Timeline yang realistic (keyword: realistic—bukan timeline yang kita buat karena pressure dari boss hehehe)
Who: Siapa yang accountable (dan ini harus nama orang, bukan team atau department)
Saya ingat waktu pertama kali bikin action plan, I was so optimistic. "Oh, this should take 2 weeks max." Famous last words. Three months later, we were still iterating. Lesson learned: always multiply your initial estimate by 1.5, minimum.
Keeping It Dynamic: Embracing the Art of Pivoting
Here's something nobody tells you about roadmaps—they're meant to be changed. Yang namanya market dan customer needs itu berubah sangat cepat.
I used to think changing the roadmap meant I failed at planning. Ternyata, the real failure adalah sticking to a plan yang sudah outdated. It's like using Google Maps from 2010 to navigate Jakarta today—you'll end up in construction sites and dead ends.
The key adalah building flexibility into your roadmap from day one. Think of it as designing a modular wardrobe—you can mix and match pieces as trends change, tapi the foundation remains solid.
(And please, jangan jadikan setiap small feedback sebagai alasan untuk major pivot. There's a difference between being responsive dan being reactive.)
The Communication Game: Building Bridges, Not Walls
Last but definitely not least—komunikasi dengan customers tentang roadmap. This is where things get tricky, because you're walking a tightrope between transparency dan overpromising.
I learned this the hard way when we announced a feature six months in advance. Market conditions changed, priorities shifted, dan we had to postpone. The backlash was... educational, to put it mildly.
Now, I communicate roadmaps dengan approach yang berbeda:
Share the why behind decisions, not just the what
Be honest about uncertainties and dependencies
Celebrate small wins along the way
Always, always acknowledge when things don't go as planned
Think of it as maintaining a relationship. You want to be open and honest, tapi you also don't want to promise things you can't deliver. It's about building trust, one conversation at a time.
The Journey Continues
Membuat customer-facing roadmap yang benar-benar works isn't a destination—it's an ongoing journey. Setiap feedback yang masuk, every market shift, each team discussion adds another layer to your understanding.
Sometimes saya masih merasa overwhelmed. Sometimes I still wonder if we're building the right things for the right people. Tapi that's okay. The uncertainty adalah bagian dari prosesnya.
Yang terpenting, remember this: behind every data point and priority list, ada real people dengan real problems yang they hope kita bisa solve. When you keep that at the center of everything, the roadmap stops being just a document—it becomes a promise. A promise to listen, to adapt, dan to keep building something yang truly matters.
"The best roadmaps aren't perfect—they're responsive. And the best products aren't built in isolation—they're built in conversation."
How's your roadmap conversation going, teman-teman?