Do SaaS Solutions Release Product Roadmaps?

Many Software as a Service (SaaS) companies do indeed release product roadmaps. These roadmaps typically outline the planned features, enhancements, and timelines for future product updates. Let's explore some common reasons for sharing these roadmaps as well as the best practices and variations of product release processes.

Why Do SaaS Companies Share Their Roadmaps?

Sharing a roadmap serves several crucial purposes:

Transparency

One of the main reasons for sharing roadmaps is to build trust with customers. By keeping them informed about what to expect in the future, companies foster a sense of reliability and stability. This transparency can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Customer Feedback

Roadmaps often invite feedback from users. This not only helps companies understand their customers better but also allows them to prioritize features based on customer needs and preferences. Engaging with the community can lead to more fulfilling products that meet real user demands.

Competitive Advantage

By showcasing upcoming features, SaaS companies can differentiate themselves from competitors. Highlighting these features can attract new customers who are looking for innovative solutions. Roadmaps also help set expectations, making it clear when new features or improvements will be available.

Strategic Alignment

Internal teams, such as development, marketing, and sales, need to be aligned around common goals and timelines. Roadmaps facilitate this alignment by providing a clear vision of future plans. This can lead to more cohesive and effective project management.

Managing Expectations

Setting realistic expectations for customers is crucial. Roadmaps help manage these expectations by providing a timeline for future updates. This prevents overpromising and underdelivering, which can lead to customer dissatisfaction.

Variations in Roadmap Detail and Format

Roadmaps can vary widely in their level of detail and format. Some may provide high-level overviews, while others include detailed timelines with specific feature descriptions. Some companies also share their roadmaps via public forums, newsletters, or dedicated sections on their websites.

Product Release: What It Actually Means

One of the most important things to understand about product releases is that they are not single, one-time events. Instead, they are often a recurring process of delivering different product versions to the market. The changes can range from minor to significant, depending on the company’s strategy and budget.

Recurring Process

In some cases, the product release is a recurring checkpoint within a PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle. This means that after the initial release, ongoing improvements and new features are continuously introduced. This process can continue until the product matures or until the business goals are achieved. Companies with a long-term perspective often follow this approach to ensure continuous improvement and innovation.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

The development journey may begin with an MVP, which is a product with just enough features to validate a business idea. After the MVP release, companies gain valuable insights into their clients' pain points and can prepare a more detailed post-release roadmap. This roadmap can help in achieving a Product-Market Fit, where the product aligns perfectly with market needs.

Stopping Development Temporarily or Permanently

Unfortunately, sometimes companies may need to stop development temporarily or even permanently due to a variety of reasons. In such cases, the development up to that point is typically completed. This includes finishing the code, merging requests, and creating documentation. This ensures that the development can be resumed from a coherent position later if necessary.

Stormotion's Expertise in Post-Release Maintenance

At Stormotion, we have extensive experience in post-release maintenance. For example, we worked with a client who had an application based on WebView, a system component that allows displaying web content directly in an application. While WebView is useful, it often results in a poor User Experience (UX) design. We proposed a partial rebuild of the application to incorporate native functions, which improved the overall user experience.

After implementing the required features, we agreed on performing post-release maintenance. This involved tracking and fixing crashes. To achieve this, we connected to the client's Firebase Crashlytics account. Our goal was to increase the number of crash-free users, and we successfully reached the point where 99.5% of users stopped experiencing unexpected exits.

This experience has led us to conduct further research on post-release maintenance. If you are interested in learning more about our approach and success stories, you can read our article 'How We at Stormotion Maintain Products After Release' on our blog!