How do you use partnerships for your digital product road map?

1 Identify your partners

The first step to using partnerships for your digital product road map is to identify who your partners are and what value they bring to your product. Your partners can be anyone who has a stake in your product, such as customers, users, investors, suppliers, vendors, distributors, or industry experts. You should map out your partners based on their roles, interests, expectations, and influence on your product. For example, you can use a stakeholder matrix or a partner ecosystem diagram to visualize your partner network and prioritize your communication and collaboration with them.

2 Engage your partners

The second step to using partnerships for your digital product road map is to engage your partners in a meaningful and consistent way. You should involve your partners in every stage of your product road map, from ideation to validation to delivery. You should seek their input, feedback, and support on your product vision, goals, features, and metrics. You should also share your progress, challenges, and learnings with them regularly and transparently. You can use various methods and tools to engage your partners, such as surveys, interviews, workshops, demos, prototypes, newsletters, or dashboards.

3 Leverage your partners

The third step to using partnerships for your digital product road map is to leverage your partners' strengths and capabilities to enhance your product. You should look for opportunities to co-create, co-design, or co-deliver value with your partners. For example, you can partner with customers or users to co-create user stories or personas, partner with suppliers or vendors to co-design solutions or integrations, or partner with distributors or industry experts to co-deliver marketing or education. You should also seek to learn from your partners' best practices, insights, or innovations and apply them to your product.

4 Align your partners

The fourth step to using partnerships for your digital product road map is to align your partners' goals and expectations with your product strategy and direction. You should ensure that your partners understand and support your product vision, value proposition, and differentiation. You should also communicate clearly and frequently how your product aligns with your partners' needs, challenges, and opportunities. You should also manage any potential conflicts or trade-offs that may arise from competing or conflicting interests or priorities among your partners. You can use tools such as OKRs, MoSCoW, or RACI to align your partners' objectives, requirements, and responsibilities.

5 Evaluate your partners

The fifth step to using partnerships for your digital product road map is to evaluate your partners' performance and satisfaction with your product. You should measure and monitor how well your partners are contributing to your product outcomes and delivering value to your customers and users. You should also collect and analyze feedback from your partners on their experience and satisfaction with your product and partnership. You should use metrics and indicators such as NPS, CSAT, retention, referral, or ROI to evaluate your partners' impact and loyalty. You should also celebrate your successes and recognize your partners' achievements and contributions.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?