I published a roadmap once. Four quarters, twelve items, a nice grid of coloured cards. Within two months it had become a list of things I felt guilty about, and within four it was a page I avoided linking to.
What it actually did
A roadmap on a small product does three things, and only the first one is good.
- It tells people you have thought past this week. Useful, and one sentence can do it.
- It converts every change of mind into a broken promise, including the changes of mind that came from listening to customers.
- It makes the next six months feel decided, which is the exact feeling that stops you noticing the better idea in month two.
What I ship instead
A changelog, and one line about what I am working on now. The changelog is the honest half — it is entirely made of things that exist. The one line is a statement of attention, not of intent:
Right now I am making the importer fast enough to run on a Monday morning.
Nobody has ever asked me for a date after reading that. Several people have written to say the importer was slow for them too, which is the conversation the roadmap was pretending to have.
The one exception
If someone is deciding whether to build their business on your product this quarter, they deserve a straight answer about the specific thing they need. Give it to them in an email, with a real date and a real caveat. That is a commitment to one person, which you can keep — not a commitment to everyone, which you cannot.