This is why any roadmap visualised with time on the x axis will fail at conveying certain things (while succeeding at others). Linear roadmaps are misleading without a crystal ball for seeing the future. A roadmap that recognises the existence of risk as time goes on is more honest. But an effective PM needs to anticipate possible branches, too - and create clear criteria for following each path. “The roadmap” is one of a 6-12 artefacts necessary for shared understanding. Yet seems to occupy 80% of headspace for PdM Taken from https://lnkd.in/eAJVC3Y3 Pavel Samsonov & https://lnkd.in/eU4VnPf5 John Cutler
Long ago and far away, in a very different job, I did something similar to this, on a real map. We called it IPB (Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield). We marked up where we thought the enemy was, constraints on our movement etc. We then identified our ‘mobility corridors’ and worked out where our decision points would fall. Distance gave you a rough idea of time, but of course speed over the ground was governed by many factors, including how hard the enemy fought back! I believe that sort of conceptual mapping is much more applicable than simple timelines. It can show up areas of risk and incorporate elements of a decision tree and probabilities. It would need a much broader understanding and representation of the product landscape though.
Much of the problem with traditional roadmaps also has to do with feature focus vs problem focus. Knowing which problems we want to prioritize solving is very different than knowing weeks or months in advance the features were going to release. I wish they were called Prioritized Problem Maps. Time is most often a risk when paired with the mistaken idea (and requirement) that we know the solutions that will best solve our problems weeks, months, or quarters in advance.
Wouldn’t an honest roadmap have eraser marks and it is written in pencil? Lol 😅
Love this visual. Practically what tools have you seen that help curate a roadmap in this sort of format so that it’s not something super custom unkept in slides or a virtual whiteboard?
Isn't time the x-axis in all of these representations?
See also my conference talk on this first given in October 2019 at Lean Agile London https://youtu.be/dZ3gDoLtLdE
The first one is an honest strategic roadmap at a singular point in time. As long as that roadmap is built with an understanding that it may change over time as new data and inputs come in, then there’s nothing wrong with it.
Honest conversations > honest roadmaps
I wish we also stopped calling diagrams "maps", or started to understand what a "map" requires to be called a map.
Product Manager | ex-Stripe
1yVisualising your roadmap honestly or strategically requires the ones looking at it to be able to understand uncertainty as well. In consultancy roles or with certain profiles that have limited software creation experience, that's a lot to ask. In those cases I try to speak in the language they understand.. aka; I take the approach of creating a 'misleading' (quote) roadmap to convey the idea where we want to go, start chipping away and communicate when we actually need to divert. Communicating and convincing people about hypothetical uncertainty upfront often takes longer than letting time do its work and leverage communication along the way + when the hypotheticals no longer are hypotheticals.