How to create a roadmap from scratch

Why follow someone else’s path when you can create your own?

You have a vision, defined some business model plays to try and compared the relative value of your options using a framework.

The next step is to start organizing your business plays, features, or projects into one or more roadmaps.

This article will walk through:

What a roadmap is
Why you need one
The parts of a roadmap
A step-by-step process for making one
Tips on how to use your roadmap to make decisions along the way

What’s a roadmap?

A roadmap is a guide.

It’s like a travel itinerary in that it gives you a rough idea of how to go from where you are to where you want to be, including stops to make along the way. It breaks down an overwhelming set of work into smaller chunks that can be implemented over time to reach your vision.

The roadmap is flexible (just like a good itinerary) so you can always make changes if you learn something new. But the structure it provides helps focus energy and resources in the direction of your vision.

What happens if you don’t have a roadmap?

Here are a few issues to watch out for…

Delayed decision making

Without a plan to reference, prioritization and decision making can take a lot longer, especially if there’s a large list of possibilities to sort through.

Slow progress toward goals

Just like working out or eating well, tracking progress towards goals can help with compliance. If there’s no roadmap or overview of your work, there’s potential to move down multiple paths slowly, resulting in minimal progress towards any one goal.

Low team morale

People like to be part of a broader purpose, so if they don’t see how their current work connects to the big picture, you might lose some of your best players.

Rework

Rework could be required if short-term decisions are made without knowledge of where the organization might go in the future.

Coordination issues

It will be difficult for your team or other teams to support the initiative if they don’t understand where you’re trying to go and how the effort will be phased. Springing something on them at the last minute isn’t always successful.

Direction shifts too often

Without a roadmap, the future of the project could be at the mercy of the whims of the day. Sharing a roadmap helps to explain what’s coming and align your whole team with that effort. By pointing to a roadmap, you can tell a story of what the future could be and discuss how the new item either complements or doesn’t fit into that narrative.

What’s an example of a roadmap?

Here’s a sample roadmap for a fictional tutoring business.

What are the parts of a roadmap?

You can get creative with the formatting of your roadmap, but in general, most roadmaps contain three major elements: 1) a time scale, 2) categories, and 3) components. We’ll go into more detail about each.

Time scale

Components

How do you create a roadmap?

Overview of the process:

Step 1) Pick a roadmap scope
Step 2) Organize your ideas
Step 3) Define your last phase
Step 4) Define your first phase
Step 5) Build out the roadmap
Step 6) Build, measure, learn, and adapt

Step 1) Pick a roadmap scope

Think about a hierarchy of roadmaps.

This graphic illustrates an example of how you could decompose the work you’re doing into different roadmaps. Towards the right, you have your most detailed and specific roadmaps. Those could be consolidated into a combined view within a particular theme, such as the examples in the middle. And finally, at the far left, you have your enterprise roadmap.

Generally, detail increases from left to right and the type of detail is tweaked to appeal to the needs and interests of decision makers who will be viewing the roadmap (ex. CEO vs. department lead vs. team lead).

Some options for narrowing your scope

Organize roadmaps by,

Customer type: For example, if your product or business serves doctors and patients, try drawing out a roadmap just for the initiatives serving doctors.
Organizational structure: If you work in a department within a larger organization, make a roadmap that only depicts what your department plans to accomplish. Alternatively, create a high-level view of everything going on in the organization.
Product or product line: Maybe your business includes selling both apparel and apps. You could split your plan out into two different product roadmaps.
Goal: Try out building a roadmap just including items related to improving one metric. Examples could be improving education levels or increasing profits.

Step 2) Organize your ideas

Plot value vs. complexity:

Draw out a value vs. complexity chart on a whiteboard or a large sheet of paper.
Write each relevant idea on a 3”x3” post-it.
Use a value framework or dot voting to determine the relative value and complexity of ideas.
Review the high value/complex initiatives. Brainstorm ways to break them apart or radically simplify the solution without sacrificing value.

Step 3) Define your last phase

Step 4) Define your first phase

Step 5) Build out the roadmap

Step 6) Build, measure, learn and adapt

Do you have lots of ideas of where you could end up? Go through the roadmapping exercise again, this time outlining a path to an alternative end state.

Track your progress and make adjustments as needed. As you start moving down any roadmap, set up checkpoints for learning and gathering feedback. Then you can review the data to decide if you should continue down your original roadmap, tweak the details, or switch to a different one.