Strategic Roadmapping for Deep-Tech Products
Leveraging Squad-Level OKRs to Build Science-Focused Roadmaps
Milestone-Driven Roadmaps: Delivering Value Incrementally in University Spinouts
In my experience, university spinouts often use traditional project management processes to deliver products to the market. The problem with this approach is that it is lengthy, and value isn't delivered until the end of the project. We should aim to deliver value to our customers and internal stakeholders, such as investors and operational teams, with milestone-driven roadmaps.
In a previous post, we discussed the need for product squads and ownership of OKRs.
From Science-Led to Product-Led: Transforming Deep-Tech Companies
Deep-tech companies, especially medTech or biotech companies, are typically spun out from academic environments where hard `R` research drives raw innovation into novel IP that forms the basis of a new venture. However, these companies often struggle to develop a product from this IP because they focus on what is scientifically feasible, rather than on …
We touched on creating roadmaps based on squad OKRs in that article, but let's dive deeper with more specifics.
Creating Squad Narratives
Before we get to the actual roadmaps, when a squad is developing their OKRs, they first set up their squad narrative.
This narrative is a common understanding document where squad members (PMs, designers, engineers, scientists) establish their Mission Statement, target customer considerations and assumptions, and squad principles. This document allows the squad to coalesce around these foundational principles and practices so they can establish their squad-level OKRs, develop a roadmap, and move the needle towards the larger company-level OKRs.
Let us establish that the company is a cancer diagnostic company with an NGS (Next-Generation Sequencing) platform to match cancer biomarkers to drugs for personalised medicine. The company has already determined its high-level strategy:
Where we play: Providing products and services to oncologists.
How we will win: Providing the most comprehensive drug recommendation platform through personalised reports to the patients of oncologists.
In this document, we will walk through how the Medical Applications Squad establishes their squad narrative that leads to their roadmap.
The Medical Applications Squad Mission Statement
The squad would be formed with company leadership, and they have determined their Mission Statement is:
Creating intuitive digital solutions that bridge the gap between genomic data and effective cancer therapies.
Medical Applications Squad Principles
With their Mission Statement defined and agreed with leadership. The squad determines the following high level principles:
User-Centric Design: Prioritise the needs and experiences of oncologists and their patients in every aspect of our applications.
Agility and Iteration: Embrace agile methodologies to deliver incremental value and adapt quickly to feedback.
Collaboration and Transparency: Maintain open communication within the squad and with other teams to ensure alignment and shared understanding.
Key Considerations and Assumptions
Now the squad can consider any positioning and assumptions about the products they will create:
Regulatory Compliance: Our applications must comply with healthcare regulations such as HIPAA, CLIA and GDPR.
Data Security and Privacy: We must ensure the highest standards of data security to protect sensitive patient information.
Integration with Existing Systems: Our solutions should seamlessly integrate with the oncologists' existing workflows and electronic health record systems.
OKRs
With the foundations now set, the squad is now ready to develop their squad-level OKRs. These will need to be aligned with the broader company level OKRs:
Objective 1: Improve the Oncologist User Experience
Key Result 1: Increase user satisfaction scores from 70% to 85% by the end of Q1.
Key Result 2: Reduce the average time to generate a patient report by 50% within six weeks.
Objective 2: Accelerate Adoption of the Personalised Report Platform
Key Result 1: Onboard 50 new oncologists to the platform by the end of Q2.
Key Result 2: Achieve a 25% increase in weekly active users over the next quarter.
Objective 3: Demonstrate Clinical Utility
Key Result 1: Develop and integrate use-case specific diagnostic tests targeting at least three major cancer types by the end of Q2.
Key Result 2: Provide personalised treatment guidance features that offer tailored treatment strategies, with a 30% adoption rate among active users by the end of Q4.
The Roadmap
With the OKRs now established, we can now develop our roadmap1.
Tracks on the X-Axis
On the x-axis, we define our tracks, which are long-term initiatives along which we deliver successive milestones. For the Medical Applications Squad—a customer-facing team—these tracks can represent the major components of the personalized drug platform essential for market success. Alternatively, tracks could represent internal operational teams that require specific initiatives to realise value.
For example:
Track 1: The Oncologist Referral App
Track 2: Personalised Report
Track 3: Clinical Utility Features
The squad's OKRs would each contribute to milestones across these tracks, and delivery across these tracks ensures the product delivers value and drives the company OKRs.
Themes on the Y-Axis
Next, the squad needs to set themes across the timeline of the roadmap. These themes are groupings of milestones designed so that completion of a theme provides significant progress towards the company's OKRs.
For instance:
Theme 1: Unlock Short-Term Revenue (Q1)
Focus on features that enable immediate monetisation opportunities, such as premium report options or subscription models.
Theme 2: Drive Clinical Utility (Q2)
Develop features that enhance the clinical relevance of our platform, such as advanced analytics and integration with clinical trial databases.
Why organize the roadmap by themes?
Organizing the roadmap by themes helps the team and stakeholders:
Maintain Strategic Focus: Keeps the team's efforts aligned with the most critical objectives.
Facilitate Communication: Makes it easier to convey the roadmap's direction to executives and stakeholders who are interested in high-level outcomes.
Provide Flexibility: Allows adjustments in features and initiatives without derailing progress towards the main goals.
We are now ready to populate the Medical Application Squad’s roadmap with milestones that aim to move the needle on our OKRs. Here is how it could look by creating milestones based on some of the OKRs above.
By structuring our roadmap with clear tracks, themes, and milestones, we can deliver value incrementally, measure our progress against OKRs, and adjust our plans based on feedback and changing priorities
Conclusion
By adopting a theme-based, milestone-driven roadmap aligned with our squad narratives and OKRs, we ensure that value is delivered continuously to our customers and stakeholders. This approach not only accelerates time-to-market but also fosters collaboration, adaptability, and a clear focus on achieving our strategic objectives.
University spinouts and other innovation-driven organizations can greatly benefit from this agile methodology. By organizing work around strategic themes, squads can maintain alignment with high-level goals while remaining flexible in their execution. This method turns ambitious visions into tangible outcomes one milestone at a time.
A roadmap is a dynamic planning and stakeholder communication tool that should be revisited regularly to reflect changes in priorities, market conditions, and stakeholder feedback. By maintaining flexibility and a customer-centric focus, we position ourselves to succeed in delivering impactful solutions in the personalised medicine space.