The sexy hook for product managers tends to revolve a lot around roadmaps. Sure, roadmaps are important, but as a product manager, you won’t actually be roadmapping all day long.

As Head of Customer Success at ProdPad, part of my job is to analyze the ins and outs of our customers’ journey. While some people join ProdPad after looking for a great roadmap solution, the reality is, they spend a minimal amount of time using that particular feature.

It’s important to remember that a roadmap is a communication tool. Its purpose is to show your team and stakeholders product vision is and what the high-level initiatives will be to get there. A roadmap is not a development plan. You should not be developing, you should be planning what your team will be developing, and figuring out the steps to get there.

So as a product manager, what other important areas of focus should you have?

Idea Management

Idea management is the process of gathering ideas from your team, as well as encouraging them to submit their own. This leads to eventually spec’ing out an idea (another one of our points below). With this particular aspect, your job is to go through your backlog, update ideas, request more information if needed, and spec out those ideas that have potential.

Getting your team engaged

Great ideas are everywhere — so why not get your team involved? Ask them to vote, comment, and submit their own original ideas. This is a great way of getting them to talk to you and to each other about how to make the product better.

Spec’ing ideas

Some great ideas may just be a one-liner to begin with. Flesh them out, add more detail, and have them take form. Add a business case by answering two simple questions: What problem are you trying to solve? and What impact would it have if it were to be solved?

As the idea takes form, add mockups and designs, add user stories if you need them, and assign a rough impact and effort to determine whether it’s a winner or a time sinker.