Feature bundling in Productboard

1 month ago
19 May 2022
5 replies
49 views

Userlevel 2

Robert Smit
Questioner
7 replies

Hi Productmakers,

At Channable we’ve recently started working with Productboard and so far we’re really loving the experience. But now that we want to create roadmaps I’m running into a problem that I can best describe as: “I can only create feature bundles using releases which feels like I’m misusing the feature”. See the example below. We have an MVP release at the end of Q2, and using the Release Timeline roadmap template I can easily tell the timeline and contents of the MVP. However on a higher level this MVP is also part of the overarching Q2 release (we generally release once per quarter). So now I have three issues:

I cannot put the MVP into the Q2 release since releases cannot contain other releases
There are a lot of releases being created for all the different (sub-)products/stages my team is managing
A ‘release’ as concept can mean multiple things which creates confusion

Does anyone else have experience with this? Thanks in advance!

Kr Robert

5 replies

Userlevel 7

+12

scott.baldwin
Community Lead
708 replies
1 month ago
20 May 2022

Hi @Robert Smit,

I don’t have full context from your post, but it sounds like you have features being released on two release cadences -- one being when your MVP is released, the other being when you do your quarterly releases. What I’m not clear on is whether your quarterly contains everything you did in the MVP or just the other things you didn’t do in the MVP.

The construct of an MVP as a release feels a bit weird here -- most orgs would likely break out the timeline of the features under a larger release cycle like the quarters you use and capture the MVP as a milestone on their timeline roadmap.

However, since a feature(s) can be tied to more than one release, you should be able to display both on your roadmap.

In this case you’d tie your features in the MVP release to that release as well as a the quarterly or only add those to the respective releases.

Here’s an example with two features tied to the MVP release and two of those same features plus one additional feature tied to a Q2 release (here I’m using high-level time horizons).

Let me know your thoughts here.

Userlevel 2

Robert Smit
Author
Questioner
7 replies
1 month ago
20 May 2022

Hi @scott.baldwin!

Thanks for reaching out. I think your answer that features can be tied to multiple releases pretty much solves my issue. A bit more context might help:

We have development teams for whom the MVP timeline determines when to start release activities (training, prepping demo, etc.)
We have product marketing teams who bundle new features to create quarterly updates, blogposts, etc. As well as coordinate GTM strategies for new features.

So in a way an MVP should be in both the team’s timeline and the product marketers timeline, though with different goals. So thanks for that :).

Userlevel 7

+12

scott.baldwin
Community Lead
708 replies
1 month ago
20 May 2022

Anytime, glad we could help @Robert Smit

Userlevel 4

Andrew Fragias
Product Makers Ambassador
55 replies
1 month ago
24 May 2022

@Robert Smit

Have you considered the use of objectives? It sounds like one of the 2 you mentioned is actually an objective rather then an actual release. Objectives help group features and can be displayed in there own version of a roadmap. We tend to use objectives as quarterly goals for example this quarter may focus heavy on UI updates so the objective would be the grouping of all the features that relate to the UI updates

Userlevel 2

Robert Smit
Author
Questioner
7 replies
1 month ago
24 May 2022

@Andrew Fragias Thanks for your suggestion and yes I have. Unfortunately those are not available to me as we are currently on the Pro subscription. However, we are considering upgrading so that might definitely be the way forward.