# pm-workbench roadmap

This roadmap is not about adding endless PM content.
It is about making `pm-workbench` more indispensable for real product work.

## Product direction

The ambition is to make `pm-workbench` feel like the **default PM judgment layer** inside an agent workflow:

- research can gather evidence
- analytics can surface signals
- document / slide tools can polish outputs
- `pm-workbench` turns ambiguity into recommendations, reusable outputs, and next moves

## Current phase

### Phase 1 — Trust

Status: in progress

Focus:

- harder benchmark proof
- clearer quick start and cold-start trial path
- stronger case studies for first-time visitors
- more inspectable evidence chain, not just stronger copy

Current state:

- benchmark pack added under `benchmark/`
- README tightened around value, fit, and first prompts
- 3-minute onboarding path added
- first high-tension case studies added

### Phase 2 — Core judgment

Status: active next layer

Focus:

- strengthen upstream clarification
- sharpen go / hold / no-go and why-not-now reasoning
- make compressed artifacts stay sharp under speed pressure
- make the top 3 differentiating workflows visibly stronger than generic AI

Priority workflows:

- `clarify-request`
- `evaluate-feature-value`
- `prioritize-requests`

Current state:

- critical-premise rule already added to major workflows
- artifact-first behavior is in place
- next improvement is to sharpen failure-mode handling and strong-output standards

### Phase 3 — Expansion

Status: only after the core feels sharp

Focus:

- deepen product leader and founder review shapes
- enable contributor-safe extension without bloating the repo
- strengthen comparative validation beyond the first internal benchmark layer

Possible additions later:

- more leader-specific review shapes
- more edge-case comparison scenarios
- better extension guidance for new artifact types

## In scope

- PM judgment
- product decision framing
- prioritization and leadership communication
- reusable PM artifacts
- product-leader / founder product-business trade-offs

## Out of scope

- raw data-heavy analytics
- deep project or program tracking
- legal or compliance review
- general business operations tooling

This boundary is deliberate.
If the repo keeps expanding without a center, it stops being a PM workbench and becomes a generic strategy dump.

## Non-goals for now

Not a priority yet:

- turning the repo into a giant PM theory library
- adding many narrow workflows before current ones are benchmarked well
- splitting into many sub-skills too early
- pretending to replace analytics, research, or delivery execution tools

## What “excellent” would look like

A future best-in-class version of `pm-workbench` would feel like this:

- a new visitor understands the value in under a minute
- a PM can get useful output from the first real prompt
- the outputs feel better than generic AI at judgment, not just wording
- product leaders can use it for strategy, prioritization, and upward communication
- contributors can improve it without making the repo messy or bloated
- the repo has enough internal validation that trust does not depend only on prose claims

## Current roadmap lens

If there is a trade-off, prefer work that improves one of these:

1. proof and credibility
2. decision quality
3. output usefulness
4. onboarding and discoverability
5. product-leader relevance
