I stopped putting dates on anything more than one quarter out. Here is why, and what I do instead.

The problem with dates

A roadmap with dates in it is read as a promise by everyone who did not write it. Sales reads it as a promise to customers. Leadership reads it as a promise to the board. The team reads it as a deadline they did not agree to. Six months later the dates are wrong, and the only thing anyone remembers is that they were wrong.

What a roadmap is for

A roadmap is a tool for deciding what not to do. It should make the next quarter concrete and the quarters after it honest: these are the problems, in this order, and here is why.

What I do instead

• Now: what is being built this quarter, with names and a metric
• Next: the problems we will take on after, in order, with no dates
• Later: the things we believe matter but have not sized

The Now column is a promise. The other two are a plan. Everyone can tell which is which, because only one of them has dates.

The objection

«Sales needs dates.» Sales needs to know what to say. «This quarter: X. After that, Y, then Z, in that order» is something you can say to a customer without lying.

A roadmap is not a promise about the future. It is a decision about the present.

I have used this format at two companies. In both, the arguments about dates stopped, and the arguments about order got better.