Technical Roadmap & OKR Vocabulary

A goal-setting framework where an Objective is a qualitative, ambitious goal and Key Results are 2-5 measurable outcomes that define success. Common in tech companies for quarterly goal alignment.

"Our Q3 OKR: Objective — Make onboarding delightful. KR1: Reduce time-to-first-value from 14 days to 3 days. KR2: Achieve NPS ≥ 50 for new users after 30 days."

A probability estimate (0–1 or 0%–100%) of whether a team believes it will achieve a Key Result. Regularly updated as evidence accumulates. 0.7 is considered ambitious; 1.0 suggests the goal is too easy.

"At mid-quarter check-in, the KR showing 40% confidence needs immediate attention — either a plan to accelerate progress or a conversation with leadership about descoping."

A time-horizon roadmap format: Now = what is being built this quarter, Next = planned for the next 1-2 quarters, Later = longer-term ideas. More flexible than date-based roadmaps.

"Moving from a date-based Gantt chart to a Now/Next/Later roadmap reduced stakeholder questions about "why are we late?" — the format communicates strategy without false date precision."

A prioritisation scoring framework: Reach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort = RICE score. Higher score = higher priority. Used to objectively compare competing product initiatives.

"The RICE model ranked the push notification feature higher than the advanced export — 5,000 monthly reach vs. 200, with similar impact and confidence, despite equal effort."

A prioritisation method categorising features as Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, and Won't-have (this time). Commonly used in sprint planning and release scoping.

"Using MoSCoW for the v2 release: two-factor auth is a Must (legal requirement), dark mode is a Should (high demand), custom exports are a Could (nice to have), and offline mode is a Won't for this release."

To remove a feature or item from the current release scope — typically done when a deadline is at risk, trading scope for time.

"With two weeks left and three features unfinished, the PM decided to descope the analytics dashboard from the v3 launch — it will ship as a fast-follow in the next sprint."

In modern product strategy, a "bet" is a strategic initiative with uncertain outcome but expected high value — framing it as a bet acknowledges uncertainty and the need for evidence to validate.

"Our three annual bets: international expansion (biggest growth lever), AI-assisted onboarding (activation improvement), and the enterprise tier (revenue diversification). Each bet has a hypothesis, success metric, and assigned team."

A high-level strategic effort that groups multiple epics toward a shared goal — sitting above epics in the planning hierarchy: Strategy → Initiative → Epic → Story → Task.

"The 'Reduce churn' initiative contains three epics: improved offboarding flow, win-back email campaign, and in-app health score — each epic maps to the same business goal."