Requirements for a Simple Roadmapping Tool

I’ve been dissatisfied with the complexity and cost of most requirements management, feature prioritization and roadmapping tools. I’d like your help in designing a solution specifically for product managers. Tell me, what features must such a tool have to meet your needs?

For me, a simple roadmapping tool must...

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    1. Has to have a simple option to cluster similiar requirements

      Often, if several stakeholders or even customers/channels are involved in the idea creation process, similar requirements pop up and can be clustered and all addressed with a single, smart solution.
      So a tool has not only the need to collect requirements and break them into sub-ideas. It also needs the ability to cluster several reqs. into a category or "mega-cluster" so it will be easy to see the "biggies" vs. the "clutter below"

      6 votes
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        under review  ·  1 comment  ·  Admin →
      • Make the output visually stunning

        The end roadmap which the tool produces should look great, ideally to the standard of a good marketing department so that it draws people in and encourages them to read it and critique it.

        4 votes
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        • Make it easy to grab snippets from everywhere

          Per David Atkinson's comment on Centralize requirements in one place, "The tool needs to make it trivial to take snippets of data from multiple sources (emails, blogs, random web pages, free-form feedback from customers, survey answers) and save them to the requirement so I can easily access them at a later date. If I have to spend five minutes, or even one minute, to log each piece of data, the system has failed. It has to be just as easy as dragging an email from outlook to a folder, or dragging a web page URL from IE to a folder."

          9 votes
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            The more I think about this one, the more critical I think it is that we make this easy. People won’t use it for it’s critical gathering/centralizing function if it isn’t “trivial” as the poster suggests. If it’s extra work to get it all in the tool, people won’t use it.

          • Enable introduction of mock-ups and workflows or navigation paths

            It often happens when designing software products or components, mock-ups (e.g. Balsamiq) help all parties better understand the requirements. Traditional requirement management tools are too much focussed on "written requirements" while one image or workflow can clarify a thousand words. Collaborators will more easily understand requirements.

            14 votes
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              under review  ·  1 comment  ·  Admin →
            • Ability to capture approvales & signoffs against the objects

              Being able to capture feedback and approvals from key stakeholders within the tool would be outstandin

              4 votes
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                under review  ·  0 comments  ·  Admin →
              • Display various versions of the integrated roadmap on demand

                My dream solution would manage enough data, in one place, to support all the types of roadmaps, and provide the display options that can generate any type of roadmap on the fly, for example internal Product Roadmap, internal Technology Roadmap, internal Sales Roadmap, internal Marketing Roadmap, and external Market-Appropriate Roadmap. The goal here is to minimize the maintenance of graphics, and have the graphics generated from the data that has to be maintained anyway.

                10 votes
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                • be accessable from mobile devices

                  To be able to view ideas & workflow & be able to leave feedback & approvals using a mobile device. Key stakeholders can be difficult to get time from

                  2 votes
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                  • Greater configuration in states & workflows

                    State & workflows can be to rigid in a lot of tools. Enable the ability to completely configure how the work flow goes, & what the states are

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                    • 9 votes
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                        under review  ·  2 comments  ·  Admin →
                      • Be easy to maintain and update

                        The key to any tool that will be of use will be the ability to easily maintain and update all of the roadmap items - particularily the sub task issues. Allowing users to "build their own" dropdowns and selections (with the abillity to override) may be helpful. I've never really wireframed something out to do this - just resigned myself to excel spreadsheet hell, trying to manage the hundreds of items....

                        6 votes
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                          This hasn’t had many votes (perhaps because it seems obvious) but I think the central idea of updating requirements, priority, dates and status in one place and having that automatically reflected in all views is a core feature.

                        • Associate requirements with User and Buyer Personas

                          It should allow me to link a specific requirement with a specific persona(s), and the priority of the persona should factor in to the prioritization of the requirement

                          17 votes
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                          • Feedback and Trace ability of requirements

                            I need a way to track ideas that have been worked on and how they have been closed, when they have been closed as well as what was closed, how much was closed and what is left to do ?

                            19 votes
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                              I’m interpreting this as being able to update, track and display the status of items in the roadmap so that when they are complete (or abandoned) they can be taken off the list and stakeholders can be informed. On that basis, this must be part of the proposed solution.

                            • 11 votes
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                              • Help me prioritize requirements

                                It's hard to prioritize all the great ideas that come in from customers, salespeople, executives (and sometimes spouses). It would be great if there were a simple way to map features ideas to company goals to provide an objective way of ranking ideas.

                                34 votes
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                                  This has by far the most votes and is one of the key things existing tools don’t do well. Prioritization is also one of the core responsibilities of a PM and there is a strong need to demonstrate objective support for a requirement, essentially a mini business case. I’m accepting this as the core feature of the proposed solution.

                                • Network Diagram View

                                  Network Diagrams are a great way to visualize dependacies between requirements.

                                  6 votes
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                                  • Communicate the roadmap to stakeholders

                                    I need to be able to communicate the current roadmap to all stakeholders inside and outside the company so I have something to present and so that I am not constantly inundated with questions about it.

                                    20 votes
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                                      A roadmap is no good if no one but the PM can see it. The proposed solution needs to allow a view of what’s planned to a variety of stakeholders. I’m accepting this as a core part of the proposed solution.

                                    • 4 votes
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                                      • 3 votes
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                                        • Gantt View for Scheduling

                                          I'm forever reviewing commitments against schedules - I would like to be able to see stories in a Gantt format.

                                          6 votes
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                                          • 2 votes
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