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StrategyProcess · 5 min read
The roadmap horizon problem
Most roadmaps try to plan 12 months out. The honest planning horizon is much shorter, and teams that admit it ship more, not less.
Every leadership team produces an annual roadmap. By month 4, it’s already 30% off. By month 8, the team is shipping things that weren’t on the original roadmap at all. The annual roadmap was always fiction; the team pretends it wasn’t.
The honest horizon
- 1-3 months: concrete commitments, measurable, owned.
- 3-6 months: bets, named but not promised.
- 6-12 months: themes, direction, not deliverables.
- Beyond 12 months: anyone claiming certainty is selling.
Why this works better
Teams that plan honestly at each horizon ship more, because they stop spending energy maintaining the fiction of a 12-month plan. Stakeholders trust the plan more because the certainty matches the actual confidence. Course-correction becomes routine, not a crisis.
An annual roadmap is mostly fiction by month four. Better to be honest about the horizon than to perform certainty you don’t have.