How to roadmap integrations as a PM
Nail your integrations roadmapping to drive product and revenue growth
Introduction
The right product integrations drive growth, increase retention, and create new revenue opportunities.
But roadmapping these integrations requires careful planning and strategic decision-making. Here's how to approach it successfully as a product manager.
Choosing the right integrations
As we have outlined in 'How to think about integrations as a PM', not all integrations are created equal. Prioritize your integrations based on:
- Customer demand: How many customers need it and how urgently?
- Business impact: Will it reduce churn, help close deals, or increase revenue?
- Feasibility: What's the implementation and maintenance complexity?
- Strategic fit: Does it align with your product vision and market positioning?
Make sure you balance quantitative data with qualitative insights to identify the integrations that matter the most to your customers.
Scoping and planning
Once you’ve prioritized your integrations, you need to define their scope. As a rule of thumb:
Deep integrations with core customer systems require
- Bi-directional data sync across multiple entities
- Customer-specific configuration options
- Field mappings and advanced customization
Shallow integrations for specific use cases involve
- One-way data transfers to external systems
- Simpler configuration requirements
- Point-to-point connections enabling broader workflows
To ascertain whether you have a deep or shallow integration, develop clear user stories and acceptance criteria that address the customers’ core jobs-to-be-done.
Define specific success metrics that align with both customer needs and business objectives.
Timeline and resource planning
Realistic timelines are crucial for successful integration delivery. Here’s what you should consider doing:
- Break each integration into manageable components (see scoping above👆)
- Make sure your team understands API limitations and potential technical hurdles
- Account for testing time, especially for mission-critical integrations
- Plan for documentation and customer enablement
Be transparent with stakeholders (such as your engineering team) about how integration work impacts core product development resources, and set expectations accordingly.
Plan for robust maintenance
Building integrations is already hard, and often takes much longer than expected. But without proper structures in place, integrations can quickly become a maintenance nightmare that consistently uses engineering resources.
You should also plan for the long term now, rather than into the future, by:
- Designing flexible architecture that accommodates API changes
- Implementing a robust monitoring system to catch errors and debug quickly
- Building a robust infra to streamline maintenance and prepare for scaling
Remember that integrations aren't "set and forget"—they require ongoing attention as both your customers’ product needs and third party APIs evolve outside of your control.
Build vs buy
Should you build, or buy an integration? That’s a huge decision, but one that should be made before you plow resources into developing the integrations your customers will love.
The traditional build vs buy decision often leaves product teams frustrated with both options:
Building in-house
- Pros: Complete control over your integrations
- Cons: Engineering resources diverted from core product, endless maintenance headaches, slow time-to-market
Typical "buy" solutions
- Pros: Quick implementation, reduced engineering burden
- Cons: Limited flexibility, restrictive frameworks, one-size-fits-all approach
The Nango Approach: Get the Best of Both Worlds
Nango offers a third path that combines the control of building with the efficiency of buying:
- Write your integration logic exactly how you want it
- Let us handle authentication, rate limiting, and API syncing infrastructure
- Scale from simple to complex integrations without rebuilding from scratch
Making the right decision for you and your team depends on many factors, and there are always tradeoffs, but we’ve made a handy framework to help you make the best choice. Check it out here!
Conclusion
A strategic approach to integration roadmapping helps you deliver more value to customers while maximizing your team's efficiency.
By carefully prioritizing integrations, scoping them appropriately, making informed build-vs-buy decisions, and planning for the future, you can turn integrations into a powerful competitive advantage.
Useful resources
How to think about integrations as a PM
Why integration infra is harder than you think
