{"id":116090,"date":"2022-05-19T08:35:30","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T08:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.wingify.com\/blog\/experimentation-outcome-driven-roadmap\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T13:24:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T07:54:29","slug":"experimentation-outcome-driven-roadmap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wingify.com\/blog\/experimentation-outcome-driven-roadmap\/","title":{"rendered":"Outcome-Driven Roadmap: Paving the Way for Better Feature Experimentation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In our previous post within our \u2018Feature Experimentation\u2019 series, we listed some essential best practices<\/a> when it comes to feature testing <\/a>and experimentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also mentioned the importance of having a roadmap in place to help guide your team so that they\u2019re clear on the main business objectives so that they can build efficient tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This roadmap will essentially be the link between these objectives with a product manager\u2019s ideas to be able to run experiments and track the right metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a product manager in a modern software development world, you know how critical it is to quickly deliver features or products to keep up with rapidly changing demands.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You also understand how important it is to continuously run experiments to make sure that your releases are ones your customers actually want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having a roadmap in place will enable you and your team to plan experiments that lead you to the best outcomes in line with your company\u2019s overall strategy and objectives.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, in this post, we will guide you on how to build and create an experimentation roadmap so you can determine what you need to optimize and figure out which experiments you need to run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A well-structured roadmap will help you and your team prioritize which actions to take and which experimentation ideas are viable to achieve your goals and objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It outlines a clear strategy for your team to follow so everyone is on the same page working towards the same objectives.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do you need an experimentation roadmap?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the previous section, we quickly went over the importance of having an experimentation roadmap in place to achieve your goals. Here we will go into more detail about why you need such a roadmap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are focusing specifically on an \u2018experiment-driven\u2019 roadmap, which is a roadmap that illustrates the experiments a product team is aiming to run in order to achieve certain outcomes in line with business objectives.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a roadmap helps to point out which features to add, change or remove depending on the pain point you\u2019re trying to solve and the data generated from experiments and any additional data gathered from other sources such as through the discovery phase process or from interviews or product usage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put simply, it will act as a strategic plan of action that communicates to all teams how your short-term goals align with the organization\u2019s long-term goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before embarking on your experimentation journey, having a roadmap should be the first step for various reasons, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Better resource planning<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Creating a clear plan or roadmap before starting your experiments will help you plan your resources in advance instead of finding out you\u2019re running out of resources halfway through an experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, as you run more experiments, you\u2019ll be able to better allocate resources to each of these experiments to obtain more accurate results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also very likely that as you go further into your experimentation journey, you might want to create more complex experiments and tests. When you have a roadmap in place, you will be able to plan in advance for such tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, a roadmap will enable you to see the kind of resources, such as maximum budget, you have at your disposal to plan your experiments more efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working towards a common objective<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As already mentioned, an experimentation roadmap will clarify for your teams the kind of goals and objectives you\u2019re aiming to achieve so that every team is aligned and experiments can be built around these goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, if you have a roadmap established, you and your team will know which tests you need to run first so you can start planning these tests and the kind of resources you\u2019ll need, as per the point above. This will end up being a huge time-saver as you have a clear idea of which experiments would fulfil company objectives.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a more efficient way than running random tests which might not get you the results you\u2019re looking for and that end up being a waste of time and resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greater visibility and enhanced communication<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Because everyone has a clear goal to organize their workflow around, this gives greater visibility to all teams within an organization on the testing processes that are being set up.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, in turn, allows for better communication as everyone is on the same page on what needs to be done and the information they need to do it. In short, it helps to communicate and lay out to the teams involved what the plan is to achieve objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This also helps establish a culture of experimentation within the organization as different teams share their insights and learnings from the experiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve emphasised in our previous post<\/a> in our Feature Experimentation series the importance of making experimentation a team effort and an experimentation roadmap facilitates this process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By building this roadmap, you\u2019re basically communicating to your teams that experimentation and optimization are taken seriously and are at the forefront of the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, from this section, we can conclude that an experimentation roadmap helps align teams, the company vision and its overall goals with the kind of experiments you run.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It helps put experimentation at the core of your business and puts it into perspective within the wider business objectives. In other words, it gives teams purpose and direction in their day-to-day work.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep your eye on the goal: Focus on the outcomes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Agile product development<\/a>, it is often the outcomes that matter foremost while putting users at the heart of the process to deliver concrete and measurable results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What this means is that when drawing up your roadmap, you should focus on outcomes rather than just listing the features you\u2019re looking to build within a certain timeframe and hence forcing you down a fixed path.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you look at outcomes, your main focus is on understanding problems and finding innovative ideas to solve these problems through experimentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the essence of an experimentation or experiment-driven roadmap. When you run experiments, you are given the opportunity to explore various solutions by testing different features within your experiments and tracking their performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consequently, your main focus will be on achieving outcomes rather than having a predefined list of features you think will be the solution to your pain points. Also referred to as a feature-driven roadmap<\/strong>, this roadmap instead focuses on a fixed list of features to be delivered over a given time period without taking into account the wider consumer or market context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that the goal of an experimentation roadmap is to help you reach specific outcomes within various time frames, outcomes that fulfil both short- and long-term goals.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, you start out with a problem or pain point you\u2019re trying to solve and the experimentation roadmap gives your team insight and a clear strategy on how to solve that problem by testing out your ideas through different experiments till you get the outcome you\u2019re looking for.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example of a problem-focused roadmap can be seen in the image<\/a> below, which includes a \u2018discover and experiment\u2019 phase to help tackle problems in each quarter:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

This approach provides more autonomy for your teams and encourages them to share their own insights and knowledge which helps to instil a true culture of experimentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focusing on the outcomes will enable product teams to be more flexible by making constant changes and reiterating to get to the outcome instead of committing in advance to features that they think will deliver the desired results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only once you\u2019ve validated features through experiments should you proceed with releasing a feature that will actually deliver value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following image<\/a> depicts a more simplified and straightforward version of this approach:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Outcome-focused<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How to construct your experimentation roadmap: Step-by-step<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In this section, we will discuss the steps to follow when creating your roadmap to help run efficient experiments and campaigns.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Outline business mission and vision<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We stressed the importance of aligning short-term goals of your experiments with the long-term organizational goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For that, you will need to clearly outline the mission and vision in order to create quarterly objectives and key results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards, it is imperative to establish your business goals, based on the vision and mission, as these will be the basis for all the future experiments you run (or don\u2019t run).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Define goals<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Once you have established the main business objectives, you will now need to consider why you are running these experiments in the first place. In other words, what the goals of these experiments are, i.e the why <\/em>aspect of your experiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your roadmap should contain specific, detailed descriptions of the kind of changes you want to see and define what success looks like for your company so you can set goals based on this information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your goals will usually be tied to your brand vision and overall business objectives. In other words, it will focus on the bigger picture so that it communicates clearly to all stakeholders the desired business outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironing out the details will then serve as the foundation of your experimentation framework and roadmap and act as a prerequisite for tactical planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting experiential goals will then help you formulate hypotheses as a starting point for any test you run. This is especially the case if you\u2019re planning to run A\/B tests, which usually start with a hypothesis that includes an assumption and the expected outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Define experimentation KPIs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After you\u2019ve defined your goals, you\u2019ll need to determine the primary and secondary KPIs you need to track in order to gauge the success of your experiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These KPIs will depend on the kind of results you\u2019re looking to get from these experiments so KPIs can be anything from access rate of the product page to the number of clicks on the CTA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other KPIs to consider depending on the goal of your experiment may include product usage, conversion rate and sign-up rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Outline the key features of your tests<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An experimentation roadmap will help you identify key features in each of your tests or experiments including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n