It’s all too common at the beginning of the year - new projects are kicking off…SLOOOOOWLY. Oh, come fall, when deadlines loom, how we’ll wish we could have these weeks and months back.
At nvisia, we’ve found the best way to start moving quickly is to align the team to a strategy of how we’re going to accomplish the work. We’re agile, so we know that strategy might change, but incorporating change into our plans is so much easier than fumbling around in the dark.
Since our goal is to communicate strategy and align the team, we need a communication vehicle that is clear, concise and easy to consume. Something people will actually read and understand. Enter the Project Roadmap.
The Project Roadmap is a simple table that lays out our epic/feature delivery alongside the technical infrastructure delivery to create a plan for the project. It helps us timebox the work and control scope so that we can use agile process to hit a timeline and budget. Early in a large project we think in months, and eventually break it down to sprints.
An example project roadmap:
We find that creating a plan at this level of detail enables our teams to:
- Feel confident moving forward on the tasks at hand
- Avoid analysis-paralysis by knowing architecture will be introduced incrementally
- Communicate project progress to stakeholders
- Communicate the impact of scope creep to business partners
- See when the strategy needs to be adjusted and course-correct appropriately