The fourth column of every roadmap

Every roadmap I have ever built had a fourth column past Later. Nobody labels it. It is where things go when a stakeholder asks about them and you do not want to say no yet.

I used to pretend that column did not exist. Pretending is worse than the column.

The category error

A roadmap is not a plan. A plan implies you know the sequence and the dependencies and roughly when things land. That is only true for the next few weeks, and it is true then because the work is already scoped and mostly started.

Everything past that is a forecast with error bars, and the error bars grow fast. But the artifact renders every item at the same visual weight, in the same shaped box, in the same font. So a thing we are actively building looks identical to a thing someone mentioned in a QBR in March.

Then a stakeholder plans a launch around a box that was, honestly, a vibe.

Show the confidence, not just the order

The change that has worked best for me is embarrassingly simple. Put the confidence level on the artifact itself.

• Committed. Scoped, staffed, in progress. If this slips I will tell you personally.
• Probable. We intend to do this, it is not scoped, the shape will change.
• A bet. We think this matters. Might be wrong about the problem, not only the solution.
• Not yet. Real, acknowledged, has no date, and I am not going to invent one to end this meeting.

The fourth label is the one that does the work. It gives you a way to say "I heard you, it is not next" that is honest and does not read as a rejection.

What happened when I started doing it

Two things, one expected and one not.

Expected: fewer surprised stakeholders. When something in Probable moved, nobody was shocked, because the label had already told them it might.

Unexpected: the conversations got better. Once people could see which items were bets, they started arguing about the bets instead of the delivery dates. Sales stopped asking when and started asking why, which is a much more useful question and one I actually enjoy answering.

The bit that is hard

You have to be willing to put something in Not yet in front of the person who asked for it. Every instinct says soften it, move it to Later, buy yourself a quarter.

Do not. Later with no honesty attached is how you end up with a roadmap that is 40% fiction and a team that has quietly stopped believing any of it.