> just decide your own roadmap and stick with it? While this may sound like it's easier to manage it usually ends up with a product that does not solve the pro

> just decide your own roadmap and stick with it? While this may sound like it's easier to manage it usually ends up with a product that does not solve the problem of the customer. As a product manager solving problems of your user or customer must be the first priority. The only way to do this is getting closer to the customer. I find teams shielded from customers via business teams use the best part of their product management and engineering skills (microservices included) to manage their business team and not the customers. There is a constant grooming of the backlog with features and pressure to keep the engineers managed and busy. Start measurning the value of each feature to your customers. Have short customer feedback cycles for planned features. Your backlog should reflect solutions that make sense to the customer. The book "Escaping the build trap" talks about this. I highly recommend the book. Good books on the subject talks against roadmaps and shifting to a value and goal based approach.