Roadmaps: Promises vs Physics

In January, a product team publishes a six-month roadmap: fourteen features, each with a quarter attached. Sales starts promising Q2 items to prospects. The CEO screenshots it for the board.

By June, five of the fourteen have shipped. Two of those five turned out not to matter. Meanwhile the team built three urgent things that were never on the roadmap at all — including the integration that closed the year's biggest deal.

Now it's July, and leadership wants next half's roadmap. "But this time, commit properly."