How to Make an MVP Roadmap

Many teams decide to kick off development with a minimum viable product since it's a great way to test idea feasibility out in the real world. But way too often they get carried away during the process. For instance, brilliant ideas right in the middle of project development like: "Oh, let's do it differently and add this cool feature as well" smudge the boundaries of what minimum actually implies and eclipse the real reason why you're releasing the early version of the product in the first place.

What does development without a clear plan and veering off course essentially lead to? Extra resources. As a result, MVP creation takes way longer than expected, and teams end up paying a lot more than they initially counted on. It might not be evident at first, but lots of things add up such as a few extra developer hours now and then or the necessity to put off the release date.

In essence, a good MVP plan can trace the work ahead and help teams focus their efforts. It could become the strategic guiding light for the entire project, sort of like when you place pillars in the ground to mark where the to-be-built fence will be to avoid wiggly lines or other flaws.

How do you make a roadmap for an MVP project and line out the development plan with milestones, deliverables, and deadlines optimally? On this page, we'll go over the MVP project plan creation best practices and even a few tips given by Upsilon's CTO. We'll also cover the steps to follow and what you should refrain from.

What Is an MVP Roadmap?

An MVP roadmap is a plan that outlines the objectives, scope, stages, and timeline of bringing a minimum viable product to life. It is crafted at the earliest phases of the project like discovery and marks vital aspects, including which features should be delivered and the resources required to build the MVP, and could summarize other essentials like the MVP design.

How does it differ from a general product development roadmap? A product roadmap MVP keeps in mind the agile nature of such early-version products. For instance, that they usually imply having a minimal feature set, which is selected to best portray the product's core and solve the user problem in focus. Or that an MVP requires as little resource input as possible, explaining the rather fast release that takes around three months on average. Nonetheless, the roadmap gives enough specifics to ensure that everyone is on the same page, that product decisions are relevant to the initial objectives, and resources are allocated appropriately. 

What can it be used for? Generally, this strategic plan is applied to:

• describe the MVP development work ahead in detail;
• decide on the priorities and in-scope work;
• get approvals on the inclusions, deliverables, and deadlines;
• serve as guidance and keep the whole product team on track;
• ensure the development is focused and doesn't stray away from the major goals;
• coordinate and track progress (as a plan to fall back on).

The Project Discovery Phase: All Details Explained

Article by

Anton Oparienko

How to Make an MVP Plan [MVP Roadmap Template]

So, where do you start? Here's a checklist for creating a minimum viable product roadmap during the early stages of the product life cycle. Follow these 5 steps for building a roadmap for your MVP.

Step 1: Settle on the Goals

At this point, you've passed the proof of concept phase and ensured that the idea is worth testing in the form of an MVP. You should kick off roadmap creation by clearly stating what you're building, why you're doing it, and who this product is for. Also, articulate which goals you're planning to achieve with the MVP.

An example of such a brief statement could be: "Our aim is to create an innovative health app for pets that'll empower owners to track their pet's vet visits, medication, shots, and other check-ups. Our goals for this MVP are to validate the core feature choice and get feedback from users."

You can also note which compelling reason proves that you should build the product and who are the biggest competitors at the moment. Such fundamentals like a problem statement that can be backed by facts, market demand findings, and collected data will help you provide a strong rationale for moving on to development.

Moreover, it is worth selecting the criteria that can prove you're on the right track. You can shortlist the performance metrics or other success criteria that make sense for your product. That is, what will count as MVP success in your case? Your major hypotheses and expected results and outcomes can also be marked here.

Step 2: Sift Through the Ideas and Settle on the Priorities

While it's great to be excited and brimming with tons of ideas, now is not the right time to hop and clap your hands with enthusiasm. Of course, this crucial pre-development phase implies that you'll gather lots of ideas, but discovery's superpower is to throw cold water on the endless list you'll get as a result.

Remember that a minimum viable product is not supposed to be stuffed with every possible feature you can imagine, that's not what it's created for. So all the bows and ribbons should go straight to the backlog or post-release milestones of the roadmap, otherwise, you'll be on your way to the MVP mistakes fast lane.

What do pros think on the matter? We talked to Upsilon's CTO, Nikita Gusarov, and he shared some valuable insights:

"Understanding which features are critical for the product and what can be put off for later is one of our major aims during the discovery phase. You'd be surprised, but in 10 out of 10 cases teams have a truckload of ideas as we begin planning the development work ahead. Rationelle and cold-eyed analysis is the only option if you want to make a good MVP plan."

While it might seem like something straightforward, it's way too easy to stray off course. You're venturing into all of this to test the waters. You need the MVP to validate hypotheses and ensure that the bigger and more functionally rich product is truly worth it.

You're probably on a tight startup budget too and might not be willing to wait a whole year for the product launch. Hence, you must decide which features matter most for your MVP version. What are the musts you have to include to release it? What do you expect the user to do during their journey? Here's what Nikita mentions regarding idea screening and "turfing":

"Sifting out feature ideas isn't that hard if you fall back on logic. Do you need a leaderboard for your game if you don't have any users yet? Probably not, so you can create it later. Is it worth spending resources on personalization if you don't have enough user data to fall back on? If not, handle this kind of stuff in the later stages after MVP release. Will the integration with 10 external services right away make a difference? Most likely, it won't help, but you'll drain most of your budget on finding out which of them actually work for you."

The bottom line is that you must focus on the top-priority features first when creating a MVP product roadmap. This will essentially let you concentrate on the most important assets when building an MVP.

Step 3: Finalize the Scope and Create Milestones in the MVP Roadmap

Now that you have a pool of ideas, you should distribute them accordingly. With a concise vision regarding the prioritized features, put down what's included in-scope. From the roadmap it must be clear what will be built first, how you plan on bringing it to life, and in which order. When making a timeline with milestones that depict the details of the work jot down:

• which parts of the product will be custom-built and what can be added thanks to integrations;
• the core features you simply can't do without and the tech stack required to create them;
• the sequence of their development;
• estimates of how long each part will take;
• the releases the expected timeframes;
• how you'll track progress.

What do you do with out-of-scope ideas? For starters, you can store them in some knowledge management system or a backlog that you can return to later. Yet, Nikita suggests that they could also be included in the future milestones of the roadmap to stay organized:

"Don't lose the feature ideas that are non-essential for MVP release, embed them into the roadmap to get a coherent plan instead. For instance, you can first launch a service with travel recommendations that only offers curated locations by the creator. After obtaining user data, work on the feature that ranks existing curated locations according to user interests. Once there's a large enough audience, you can move on to making it possible for users to share their own travel recommendations. And there you go, your roadmap's future milestones outline how the practically static website should evolve into one that's user-generated."

Step 4: Mention the Required Resources

Proper resource allocation is also integral. Each development decision will directly impact the overall MVP cost. Elaborate designs, how many features you'll build, their intricacy, as well as integration complexity mean additional development and QA testing hours, which could entail the need to get more specialists on board or extend the timeline. Not to mention that some costs will be present in any event, such as paying for hosting. This should also be taken into consideration during budget planning.

Either way, the MVP roadmap has to reflect which key resources are necessary and the associated costs that go hand in hand. You can note the roles and also suggest the areas of responsibility.

Step 5: Approve the Roadmap

The final point of this MVP roadmap checklist is getting approval from the primary stakeholders and decision-makers. Since it's like a blueprint that covers all the essentials from how many people should be involved, the approximate costs and deadlines, and what will be delivered as a result, it'll be simpler to sign off the plan or make amendments to it before moving on to development. You can make use of our MVP calculator to check whether your estimations aren't off the mark.

More Tips for Creating an MVP Product Roadmap

What else should you know when making a minimum viable product roadmap and planning such a project? Here are several recommendations.

Faster Is Better Than Perfect

Trying to fit every little thing possible in your first product version will result in a delayed MVP launch. The more stuff you want to add, the longer it will take and the more it will cost. If you aim to accelerate time to market and reduce costs, you have to really give the minimum viable product inclusions due thought when planning the roadmap.

At this point, you need such a feature set that'll solve the main problem you're aiming to tackle. No more, no less. It has to be a decent functioning product with just enough functionality, and by all means not something half-done. Yes, you'll polish the product and complement the product with add-ons, but this can be done at the later stages.

Use Third-Party Integrations

Keep in mind that you don't have to build absolutely every feature from scratch. There are plenty of third-party integrations out there that you can link up and use. They're like a DIY shop where you can buy ready-made pieces to mold and assemble to your liking. But the golden rule is to use them for only non-unique parts of your product, such as user authentication and login. If you're creating a feature that makes your MVP stand out from the rest, then an integration is probably not the best option.

Agility and Flexibility Are the Core

An agile MVP is one of the fundamental characteristics of such a product and its development style. It has to be flexible and open to change as this is the kind of solution you build gradually and tweak on the go based on collected user feedback. Lots of things can change. Hence, a static MVP roadmap example is a bad one, as even your plan should be simple to modify. 

Try to be open to change when planning your minimum viable product and ensure that the format is editable too when you create a roadmap for MVP usage. Revisit the plan from time to time to ensure it’s relevant, after all, it might contain plans for future MVP growth and the scaling iterations you have in mind after release.

Make Use of MVP Roadmap Tools

Apart from using handy MVP tools to actually build the product, you can also apply those for planning the project and tracking ongoing work. For example, you can use Miro's Mind Map while brainstorming ideas. What's for tools for roadmap MVP creation where you can mark milestones and tasks, you may apply standalone roadmapping tools like Roadmunk. Alternatively, you can choose something simple like ClickUp or opt for Jira (more complex software for project management that's often used by developers).

Final Say on the Roadmap for Your MVP

The process of making a product development roadmap for a minimum viable product is somewhat similar to any other development project, yet takes the MVP peculiarities into consideration. The product itself has to have few features but be effective, small, quickly released, and brought to life using limited resources. A carefully thought-through, well-structured, consistent, and rational MVP product roadmap can provide a clear vision, help you prioritize tasks, allocate resources efficiently, guide the team, and focus efforts on the core functionality and the parts that matter most for early release.

If you're looking for a reliable tech partner who can ensure your MVP product launch is smooth, our team of pros can help you all the way from strategic planning to turning your ideas into a feasible product. We can kick it off with our 2-week discovery phase services to plan the work ahead and also offer MVP development services tailored for early-stage startups, guiding the product from concept to scale-up. Feel free to contact us to discuss your project!