With the Crowbar release behind us, it’s time for my team at Dell to do some Capital “P” Planning. Planning for us includes both tactical (next release) and strategic (the releases beyond the one after next), but each type of planning looks very different. I’m going to call it “roadmapping” because planning means something specific and tactical in Agile.

I love roadmapping but I’m a pain to roadmap with because I’m a ruthless prioritizer.

When I sit down for roadmapping, I always do it from a 1 to N list without ties. That means that when marketing asks for a new feature (double the foo on the bar!) we put it on the list relative to other work that needs to get done. If you add something at the top then something else will fall off the bottom. Effectively, we’re using the list to say no to a lot of great ideas. This is essential because “the great is the enemy of the good (Voltaire).” It’s hard, but that’s the cold reality of delivering product.

The most important part of strategy is figuring out what to push down to make room for the precious few yes items.

Successful roadmapping is negotiating the splitting of big ideas into smaller ones. Decomposition is a circular process because one compromise may require another, but one change may force a cascading assumption fault. If you get too emotionally committed to one feature or subset then you’re going to slow down the process. It’s vital to approach roadmapping in free fall.

As always, my advice is to not mix meeting objectives. If you need more strategy then you’ve got to make time for it.

Interested in more…stay tuned for Agile Tao: balancing tactics & strategy