Leadership paper / 01
A roadmap should explain the trade-off
- Abstract
- A feature list tells a team what has been requested, but not why one investment matters more than another.
Chief Product Officer Canada · Global perspective
Finding the customer problem worth building for.
Experience in figures
- Active customers
- 12 M
- Across four product lines
- Net Promoter Score gain
- +46
- After a discovery-led redesign
- Products to $100 M ARR
- 3
- From zero, in five years
- Roadmap retired
- 70%
- To focus on what customers valued
Mandate
Fields of practice.
- 01
Product strategy
- 02
Customer discovery
- 03
Portfolio prioritisation
- 04
Product operating models
The journal
Further reading.
- 02
Discovery needs a decision at the end
Customer interviews and experiments should answer a question that matters to an investment.
- 03
Launch is the beginning of an adoption story
Shipping a product moves the work into the customer's environment, where onboarding, expectations and existing habits shape its value.
Open to Board appointments · Advisory roles · Speaking invitations
Start a conversationBeyond the page
The record behind the perspective.
In the boardroom
- Lumen PaymentsNon-Executive Director · 2023 — Present
- The Inclusive Design CollectiveAdvisory Board Member · 2021 — Present
Recognition
- Product Leader of the YearThe Product Leaders Forum · 2024
- Best Digital ExperienceThe Enterprise Technology Awards · 2022
In conversation
- “Retiring 70% of the roadmap was the best decision we made”The Product Leaders Forum · 2025
- “Discovery as a leadership habit”The Technology Leaders Review · 2024
- “Episode 125 — The problem worth solving”The Leadership Ledger podcast · 2024
Gave the whole company a shared definition of what customers actually need.
Continue the conversation
Ideas are tested in conversation.
For board, advisory and speaking invitations, and for readers who want to take an argument further.
- Board appointments
- Advisory roles
- Speaking invitations
office@viviennetremblay.example