roadmap-planning

---
name: roadmap-planning
description: When the user needs to organize product initiatives into a prioritized, time-sequenced plan with outcomes and dependencies.
related: [prd-writing, mvp-scoping]
reads: [startup-context]
---

# Roadmap Planning

## When to Use
Activate when a founder or PM has a set of product ideas, feature requests, or strategic bets and needs to organize them into a coherent roadmap. This includes situations like "help me plan our Q2 roadmap," "prioritize this feature backlog," "what should we build next," or "create a roadmap for the next 6 months." Also activate when an existing roadmap needs restructuring from output-focused (feature lists) to outcome-focused (customer and business impact).

## Context Required
- **From startup-context:** company stage, team size and composition, current product state, business model, key metrics, strategic goals, company OKRs.
- **From the user:** current roadmap or list of candidate initiatives, known customer needs, resource constraints, hard deadlines, strategy documents or company objectives for alignment, and any committed work already in progress.

## Workflow
1. **Gather the current state** -- Collect the existing roadmap or feature list. If the user provides strategy documents or company objectives, review them to understand how the roadmap should align with broader goals.
2. **Transform outputs to outcomes** -- For each initiative, ask: What customer problem are we solving? What business metric will improve? Is there a better way to achieve the same outcome? Rewrite each item as an outcome statement.
3. **Apply outcome statement format** -- Use: "Enable [customer segment] to [desired customer outcome] so that [business impact]." Every roadmap item must pass this test.
4. **Score and prioritize** -- Apply RICE scoring (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) to rank initiatives. Adjust for strategic alignment with company objectives and OKRs.
5. **Identify dependencies and sequencing** -- Map which initiatives depend on others. Note technical, data, design, and business dependencies.
6. **Sequence into time horizons** -- Place initiatives into Now (0-6 weeks), Next (6-12 weeks), and Later (12+ weeks). Use flexible release windows (quarters, not specific dates) for Later items.
7. **Validate capacity** -- Cross-check the plan against team capacity. A roadmap that requires 3x your engineering bandwidth is a wishlist, not a plan.
8. **Add strategic context** -- Document how outcomes align with company strategy, key assumptions about customer needs, and review cadence.… load the full skill through Skill Me