(2016-04-05) Cutler Stop Setting Up Product Roadmaps To Fail

John Cutler: Stop Setting Up Product Roadmaps To Fail. Look instead at the job you are hiring your roadmap to achieve. And then ask if the roadmap is the best tool for the job.

You’ve hired the roadmap because you have a Need. If things were Awesome, what would things look like?

To be clear, I advocate for thinking in terms of initiatives, problems to solve, and missions. And that’s nothing new or groundbreaking. I use mind maps.

What would a crazy successful and awesome product development team actually look like? Would they still have gantt-like visuals for their roadmap?

Need: “The process helps us have the right conversations”. Awesome: “We have the right conversations without needing a prop. It is easy to get real, and discuss priorities without solutioning.

Need: “We need to have a yearly plan, and the roadmap is part of that”. Awesome: “You always have focus, vision, and direction … not just in late December.

Consider many of the enduring debates: estimates, roadmaps, technical debt, iteration length, team structure, roles, Agile … Why do we continue arguing about them? Perhaps because they — and the methodologies we create to control them — are symptoms and medicine for those symptoms...