From the course: Business Analysis Foundations

Project planning: Project roadmap

From the course: Business Analysis Foundations

Project planning: Project roadmap

- It's good practice to deliver value more frequently. You especially know this if you use the Agile way of working. But whether it's Agile, Waterfall, or something else, it helps to communicate when various components of the project will be completed. This is especially important in very large projects or programs. It's also important when we need to adapt our results to the changing priorities of the organization. The best tool for this is a project roadmap. The roadmap is a chronological representation of not only the expected delivery of features and functions, but also the dependencies between major milestones and resource requirements. The roadmap is pretty high level, but it provides transparency. Everyone can look at it and know exactly where we are and what's coming up next. Here's a way to visualize it, and you could even do this in your office if you like. Hang a string horizontally across a whiteboard. Draw in your milestones along the way. Then cut a car out of paper and clip it to the string. The car represents the team's state of progress, as you move the car to align with the appropriate milestones. This is not just helpful for keeping everyone aligned. It can also be fun for the teams. And you don't have to use the car metaphor. I've seen people use animals instead. Just pick something that makes the roadmap clear and useful and fun for the team. A roadmap is very similar to a project schedule, where timeframes for major activities are shown. The schedule though, is used to plan and develop the more detailed activities. Now, don't be intimidated. The roadmap is merely a communication tool to show the expected delivery timeframes for benefits and results. The roadmap can be developed initially as part of the high level planning efforts. Details are then added later as the start time nears. The roadmap is a key technique used for adaptive projects. It enables the project to adapt to changing organizational objectives, since we often can't predict the future. As we get closer to the start time, things are more certain. So the flexibility of the roadmap allows us to reflect that. Determining the appropriate level of detail for various stakeholders is especially important. This can include the interim results or benefits that are being delivered as the project is being conducted. The specific communications and level of detail are identified on the communication management plan, which is developed jointly by the BA and the project manager. It always helps to know where we are, where we've been, and where we're planning to go. The roadmap enables us to make it all happen.

Contents