Roadmaps are like a loaf of bread. Decisions made in June are still likely to be tasty in July. By the time November and December roll around, though, yuck.

And yet. And yet. I keep hearing stories that turn on the phrase “…but that’s not in the roadmap…” Don’t eat this tasty, yummy, freshly-baked feature and eat the one that looks like, well, that, instead?

Roadmaps have value, but the value changes by project phase. While exploring, roadmaps should be lists of critical unanswered questions. Roadmap items should be treated as P50 goals (more later). While expanding, the roadmap should be set aside in favor of scaling-at-any- cost. While extracting, roadmaps should be taken more seriously. If a roadmap item represents a cross-team dependency, then it damn well better get done (or the dependency broken) (more later).