Roadmaps

Tom Demarco ¹ “Aggressive schedule,” I’ve come to suspect, is a kind of code phrase—understood implicitly by all involved—for a schedule that is absurd, that has no chance at all of being met. The key here is that the schedule be patently absurd; just not demonstrably absurd.

A product roadmap should communciate how you will get from today to where you want to be based on your product vision and product strategy².

There are “product roadmaps” which focus on a single product, and then there are “portfolio roadmaps” that span across several products. Portfolio roadmaps become necessary because likely they are service by a shared engineering resource².

Antipatterns - Roadmap is delivered from C-Suite or a ³ - Focus on feature output rather than the outcomes desired^2,3 - Lack of collaboartion among stakeholders, the team, and other teams³ - Lack of tie in with strategy³

higher level without consultation

1. DeMarco, T. Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency. (Currency, New York; London, 2002).

2. Cagan, M. Product Roadmaps. Silicon Valley Product Group (2009).

3. Pereira, D. How Roadmaps Accidentally Make Teams Powerless. (2022).