Roadmap

Inspired by: Strategic Roadmap | Team counterpart: Matrix

The Roadmap connects the organization's strategy deployment to its execution timeline. Where the Matrix shows what a single team is doing and why, the Roadmap shows when all teams' initiatives unfold across time and how they relate to the strategic milestones.

Purpose

• Visualize the deployment of upper-level objectives across quarters and years
• Show dependencies and sequencing between initiatives across teams
• Provide the Planning Leader with a single view of the transformation timeline

Produced in

• Summit — Updated when the portfolio is adjusted and upper-level objectives are redefined

Key Principle

A Roadmap without dates is a wish list. A Roadmap without dependencies is a collection of isolated plans. The value is in showing the sequence and the interconnection.

Anti-pattern: The Frozen Roadmap

The Roadmap is created at the beginning of the year and never updated. Initiatives that were paused or stopped still appear as active. New initiatives added mid-cycle are not reflected. The Roadmap shows the plan that was, not the plan that is.

How to detect: The Roadmap does not match the current state of the innovation portfolio. Team Owners reference objectives that no longer appear on it. The Summit adjusts the portfolio but no one updates the Roadmap afterward.

How to recover: The Roadmap must be updated in every Summit, immediately after portfolio adjustments are made. If the Planning Leader walks out of the Summit without an updated Roadmap, the decisions made in that Summit are already at risk of being forgotten.