| It may be ideal to have all these items checked off. I think a productive way to look at this is "how many of these items does the roadmap check"? If the answer is "very few" then that might be an early warning sign you're working for a product or org that is headed for serious problems. As a technical IC who can't hope to solve those large scale management problems, this can be useful a red flag. Don't wait for shit to hit the fan to leave. I have seen a large scale failure of this kind and the items listed here line up very well with some of the root causes I observed. - Is the roadmap flexible or iterative? The roadmap was hard, aggressive business targets. - Are the roadmap initiatives scoped and prioritized based on evidence? The roadmap initiatives were derived by working backwards from business targets and then evidence was found after the fact. - Does the roadmap identify major dependencies or risks? Many risks were identified much later because techincal teams were not part of input to initial planning. - Does the roadmap feel aggressive but achievable? Aggressive but not physically possible. - Does the roadmap take on appropriate risk? No, there was multiple possible independent points of failure. Anyways, if you ever see this kind of product culture I suggest running for the hills unless you like having your time wasted. And if you are a technical manager I hope you push back like hell when presented with this situation. |