It’s fitting for any manufacturing company to set clear goals for itself, whether related to product development timelines, sales quotas, or even specific technological innovations. But, of course, merely setting goals is not sufficient. To ensure business success, it’s essential to ensure all stakeholders are aware of those goals and aligned around shared objectives.
Creating and maintaining strategic alignment can be easier said than done, especially when there are many different players involved. And with product development, that’s usually the case: Think engineers, sales, marketing, and even financing teams. Thankfully, it’s possible to enhance organizational alignment through advanced technology, including dynamic product roadmapping software such as Gocious.
How Product Roadmapping Software Facilitates Alignment
The concept of strategic alignment has been introduced previously. Businesses of all kinds have long sought to center their teams around shared goals, and manufacturers are no exception.
One of the problems that many organizations face is that their teams all have their own distinct software programs that they prefer to use; for example, product development teams have a suite of tools they use internally, totally different from the tools used in the marketing team.
The problem is that these disparate tools do not always integrate well, which means team members may not have a single source of truth they can rally behind. Each team may be working with a totally different set of product specs.
Product roadmapping software corrects this problem by providing a single source of truth for the entire organization, ensuring everyone always has an up-to-date understanding of budgetary parameters, technical aspects, timelines, and beyond. Simply put, product roadmapping software provides an easy way to align teams around a collective vision.
How Product Roadmapping Software Addresses Common Obstacles
There are a number of common problems that manufacturing and product development teams face, all of which can be resolved with product roadmapping software. Consider just a few examples.
- Communication barriers. It’s increasingly common for teams to be decentralized, with different employees working remotely, occupying different offices, and even spanning different time zones. This can naturally create some communication barriers, but the right product roadmapping software can assist. Common features include real-time updates, instant alerts, and more.
- Priorities out of sync. One indicator of strategic misalignment is when teams have multiple competing priorities. While the company’s executive may share a big-picture, top-down goal, that goal can be dissected and reinterpreted in individual team siloes, with each department naturally assuming their part of the process is the most important. A product roadmap can ensure everyone remains on the same page with respect to team priorities.
- Issues with module management. Many teams also struggle with resource allocation. This is especially true when dealing with more complex product portfolios, many of which have multiple features and modules to juggle. In the absence of clear communication channels, teams may duplicate each other’s work and even come up with redundant component lists. But with dynamic product roadmapping tools, leaders can filter their dashboard to review modules according to availability, launch times, deadlines, and more.
- Inefficient technology. An astonishing number of manufacturing teams still rely on antiquated technology, like spreadsheets where new product updates must be manually entered. Not only are these solutions terribly inefficient, but they make it all too easy for different teams to have conflicting versions, as opposed to uniting around a single source of truth. Product roadmapping software is vastly superior.
- Regulatory issues. Finally, manufacturers operating in a lot of different markets may have a hard time keeping pace with the fluid regulatory environment. Product roadmapping software provides an option for incorporating compliance into the product development journey, which can help teams to guarantee alignment with all pertinent regulations.
Use Product Roadmap Software Solutions to Build Strategic Alignment
Setting goals is important for any business. For manufacturing companies, it’s important not just to establish objectives but to ensure teams are aligned around them. To do so, it’s vital to equip stakeholders with the right software solutions.
Product roadmapping tools are a no-brainer for manufacturers looking for greater alignment. Consider how the use of dynamic product roadmaps can help your teams work together in a more streamlined, strategic, and harmonious way.