Technology Roadmapping Update

I came across this interesting post on the role of emotions in product planning on the Consultaglobal blog today. the author writes about how product designers and planners should be factoring people’s emotional connections to the product into their planning.

The most relevant part of the post to this blog’s readers should be this bit:

Amazingly enough, many designers I worked with rarely look at product roadmapping, meaning that they would not spend enough time figuring out how products evolve through successive releases and how that relates to the product’s actual design:

As a result, cramming a lot of features into first product releases and mission creep have become well known innovation pitfalls.

I couldn’t agree more, of course. Roadmapping is one small part of the overall planning cycle, but I believe its key for any organization with more than a couple of projects in the works at any one time. That’s especially trued for any company whose products involve a high-tech element. We don’t usually include the emotional context of a product in its plans but I can see where doing so might improve the overall results. I suppose this is just another piece in the puzzle that will soon be commonly understood to define successful product launches.