:fa_apple: Apple is an excellent example of a company that publishes forward looking roadmaps
-
Interviewed a Product Manager candidate today and one of the questions was about "what makes a useful roadmap, to us (the vendor) and the customer?"
He leaped straight in with Apple; "Everyone knows what Apple is going to produce and their published roadmap hypes the products before launch - that is how we should manage a roadmap!"
"Eh?" I responded? "Apple don't publish any roadmap and all of the excitement is based on hype around rumors - it's an example of being successful despite having no roadmap whatsoever"
He argued and argued that Apple's "roadmap" was public, inclusive and successful.
Am I being TRWTF here? Apple should be presented as the anti-roadmap company. right?(it's clearly been a successful approach for them - I'm not arguing that, simply that Apple are not a great example of a company with a coherent published roadmap)
-
If by "roadmap" he meant "get ready to buy a new iPhone next year", sure...
-
If by "roadmap" he meant "get ready to buy a new
iPhonei-Whatever next year", sure...
FTFY
-
I believe their roadmap is "your iDevice is obsolete as soon as we get the next version out"
-
Am I being TRWTF here? Apple should be presented as the anti-roadmap company. right?
That's exactly the thought I had reading the topic title! I'm sure there is an internal roadmap but it sure isn't public!
-
A quick resolution to that argument would have been asking him to demonstrate what he's talking about. I'm pretty sure he'd come up empty handed.
-
I'm pretty sure he'd come up empty handed.
Nah, he'd have come up with something. It just wouldn't be anything remotely describable as a roadmap in any commonly accepted definition of the word - but he would insist utterly that it was and you would not be able to convince him otherwise.Probably best not to bother, really.
-
Probably best not to bother, really.
Which is what we did. Or didn't do, depending on which one is syntactically correct.