Signs it is time to revisit roadmapping

Every audit we run turns up some version of this. A few signals that roadmapping is due some attention.

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• A roadmap is a statement of intent, not a promise
• Sequence by value and dependency, not by loudest request

How to approach it

Review it quarterly or it becomes fiction. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

In practice

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Three things worth confirming about roadmapping before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Review it quarterly or it becomes fiction — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.