 roadmap is a call the business has to make. It is the prerogative of the business personnel to work out the return on an investment and align the decisions to the overall strategy of the company for that particular planning year. Also, as discussed previously, business development also has a say on when major milestones get planned in the roadmap. This may include deployment of new features on the network or the availability of new releases to the customers. This could also include timing of some upgrades for customer networks. A primary reason for this could be to ensure business commitments for some customers that are met within certain quarters so the revenue from the customer can be recognized for the same idea. This would help align the product with financial goals to be achieved by the company and help to meet or exceed them. In summary, business development personnel play a critical role in roadmap planning and implementation. They need to be properly represented in roadmap development and need to have an active say in the decisions that are made. The profitability of the product is owned by business stakeholders, and ensuring their representation and involvement goes a long way in making sure the roadmap helps the product and, in turn, helps the company deliver value in a planned manner. Customers Some skeptic may ask whether customers really need to be involved in the roadmap development. Some of them may be doing so armed with the following seemingly valid line of reasoning: It isn't our job to learn how business development is supposed to interact with customers and ensure their requirements are properly represented. If business development does its job well, why would we need to get customer representation and interaction as part of the roadmap planning? Even when business development represents customers, it is good to maintain focus on specific requirements from customers and record them in such a way that when the roadmap gets enhanced further, these inputs act as markers to ensure the customer in