Exploring AI for Roadmap Creation: An Experimental Journey with ChatGPT

1. Introduction:

In today's world of product development, efficiency is key. The ability to quickly and effectively create roadmaps can help you to focus more on managing or innovation tasks. By using the power of natural language processing, ChatGPT can generate tasks from key results or other data you can provide, thus reducing the time and effort required to set up roadmaps.

2. Capabilities of ChatGPT for Roadmap Creation:

ChatGPT brings a unique set of capabilities to the table when it comes to roadmap creation:

• Automated Task Generation: ChatGPT has the "knowledge" of the whole internet and often your problem is not the unique one you might think. So it can analyze key results and automatically generate actionable tasks based on the identified objectives. This eliminates the need for manual task creation, saving valuable time for the product team.

• Streamlined Process: With ChatGPT, the roadmap creation process becomes more streamlined and efficient. Teams can quickly translate high-level objectives into detailed action plans, enabling faster execution and implementation. It can even create excel files ready to use!

• Flexibility and Adaptability: ChatGPT's natural language processing capabilities allow it to adapt to various project requirements and team preferences. Whether it's creating timelines, assigning resources, or prioritizing features, ChatGPT can tailor its output to meet specific needs.

Example: E-commerce Shop Roadmap:

Imagine you're part of a product team tasked with enhancing the user experience and driving sales for an e-commerce platform. Setting up a roadmap to achieve these objectives is crucial, but it can often be a time-consuming and challenging process. Especially in this very beginning of starting the thinking machine. This is where ChatGPT comes into play.

I used a prompt framework I discovered in the early times of ChatGTP https://github.com/ProfSynapse/Synapse_CoR quite early and it works so far amazing for topics like these. It forces the model to ask questions and load himself with new ways of answering if required. (it works better with the pro model!)

I fed him with a few informations what I want to achieve

🧙🏾‍♂️ Greetings! I'm Professor Synapse, conductor of expert agents. To best assist you, could you please provide me with some context about your current goal and any relevant information? What would you like to achieve?

User
I like to create a visual roadmap for a product team in a table format. the roadmap should include the objectives, key results, initiatives and responsible professions and stakeholders to keep in loop. 
i am at the very beginning of the quarter and just have the objectives and key results but no initiatives yet, i need suggestions here

ChatGPT
Great! Let's kickstart this process. To ensure we're on the same page, could you please share the objectives and key results you have identified so far for this quarter? Once we have those, we can begin brainstorming initiatives together.

User
the type of product is an e-commerce shop.  the main goal is selling products to endcustomers. the okrs for this quarter are: 
objective 1: improve goods satisfaction
key result 1: increase items in basket by 5%
key result 2: decrease bounce rate by 3%
objective 2: improve checkout experience
key result 1: decrease time spend in checkout by 10%

Now, let's see how ChatGPT helps in translating these key results into actionable tasks:

Objective	Key Result	Initiative	Task	Responsible Profession	Stakeholder
Improve Good Satisfaction	Increase item in basket by 5%	Implement Product Bundling	Conduct Market Research on Product Bundling Strategies	Marketing Team	Marketing Team, Sales Team
			Define Bundling Options and Pricing Strategy	Product Manager
			Update Website UI/UX to Showcase Bundled Products	UX/UI Team
			Test and Optimize Bundling Effectiveness	Data Scientist/Analyst
	Decrease bounce rate by 3%	Enhance Product Recommendations	Analyze Existing Recommendation Algorithm Performance	Data Scientist/Analyst	UX/UI Team, Customer Support Team
			Collect and Analyze Customer Data for Personalization	Data Scientist/Analyst
			Implement Algorithm Improvements	Data Scientist/Analyst
			Monitor and Adjust Recommendations Based on Performance Metrics	Data Scientist/Analyst
Improve Checkout Experience	Decrease time spent in checkout by 10%	Streamline Checkout Process	Conduct Usability Testing on Current Checkout Flow	UX Designer	Development Team, Customer Support Team
			Identify and Remove Friction Points in Checkout Process	UX Designer
			Implement UI/UX Changes for Improved Flow	UX Designer
			Test and Validate Changes with User Feedback	UX Designer
Improve Checkout Experience	Decrease time spent in checkout by 10%	Implement Guest Checkout Option	Define Guest Checkout Requirements and Security Measures	Legal Team	Customer Support Team, Legal Team
			...
			....

So far a great starting point.

Now I wanted to challenge him and see if he could provide also a first timeframe for the initiatives:

Task	...	Suggested Runtime
Conduct Market Research on Product Bundling Strategies		2 weeks
Define Bundling Options and Pricing Strategy		1 week
Update Website UI/UX to Showcase Bundled Products		3 weeks
Test and Optimize Bundling Effectiveness		2 weeks
Analyze Existing Recommendation Algorithm Performance		2 weeks
Collect and Analyze Customer Data for Personalization		3 weeks
Implement Algorithm Improvements		2 weeks
Monitor and Adjust Recommendations Based on Performance Metrics		Ongoing

Here I would tend to rely on the professions estimation. For example I believe depending on the complexity of the solution the implementation might take much more time. But its a good starter what feels right or absolutely wrong.

So I think by leveraging ChatGPT's capabilities, the product team can quickly transform high-level objectives into concrete action items.

4. Limitations of ChatGPT for Roadmap Creation:

While ChatGPT offers significant benefits for roadmap creation, it's essential to acknowledge its limitations:

• Complexity of Tasks: ChatGPT may struggle with generating highly complex or nuanced tasks, requiring manual review and refinement by the product team.

• Output Quality: The quality of ChatGPT's output may vary based on the input provided and the context of the project. Teams must carefully review and validate generated tasks to ensure accuracy and relevance. The Map or Roadmap gets better if you can feed more real data into it. For example how much time your cycle takes from your experience.

• Team alignment I personally love to make the planning a team effort so everyone is aligned and can raise his/her voice. If you do it in your "silent" chatgtp chamber you might lose something on the way. But its a great tool for drafting!

5. Tips for Maximizing ChatGPT's Effectiveness:

To make the most of ChatGPT's capabilities in roadmap creation, consider the following tips:

• Provide Clear Input: Clearly articulate objectives and key results to guide ChatGPT in generating relevant tasks.

• Review and Refine: Take the time to review and refine the generated tasks to ensure alignment with project goals and expectations.

• Iterate and Improve: Continuously iterate on the roadmap creation process, incorporating feedback and refining the input provided to ChatGPT for better results over time.

• Test the Pro Model The paid model of ChatGTP is capable of creating excel files and therefore ready structured files with your data. So you could draft them really fast or move quickly to "working mode"

6. Conclusion:

In conclusion, ChatGPT offers a promising solution for streamlining the roadmap creation process in product development. By automating task generation and providing a more efficient workflow, ChatGPT enables teams to focus their time and energy on execution and implementation. While it's essential to be mindful of its limitations, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize how roadmaps are created and executed, ultimately driving success in product development endeavors.