The alternative to roadmaps

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The Problem with Roadmaps

I recently read a very interesting article by Marty Cagan against the concept of Roadmaps, called “The alternative to Roadmaps”.

In short, Marty Cagan proposes a mixed concept of Product Vision and Team Objectives accompanied by OKRs to achieve, allowing teams to be autonomous about how to achieve certain objectives, something that a Roadmap, in itself, does not allow.

Personally, I believe that a Roadmap is not the right way to allow a company to be agile, and in this respect I agree with Marty Cagan.

At the same time, however, I understand its importance in terms of business. Answering the question “when will you give me my money back with interest?” can make the difference when looking for investors. Additionally, a Roadmap can be useful for communicating to customers what to expect in the future, and for giving direction to development teams.

The problem, as Marty Cagan points out, is that a Roadmap provides the what, but does not explain the why, removing the possibility for the teams to be autonomous.

Marty Cagan’s idea is to make the team aware of the why of a project, and to let the teams themselves decide the what.

My opinion

I don’t have a clear idea yet, but I think that the concept of Innovation Tokens introduced by Dan McKinley in his article Choose Boring Technology can be applied in reverse.

What do I mean? That we could have Roadmap Tokens, which allow development teams to decide for themselves what to develop, but at the same time allow the company to have a vision of what to expect in the future.

In the next quarter we have to develop 17 new features? Well, we have 4 Roadmap Tokens, which means we can take any four of these initiatives and decide to change them on the fly, adapting to market needs or business changes. Sometimes we will keep the goal but change the way to achieve it, other times we will change the goal itself. Having a limited number of Tokens allows us to maintain some control over initiatives, but at the same time allows teams to be autonomous.