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Roadmap for Success

You’ll need a clear timeline and a plan of action to get your idea out into the world. A Roadmap keeps you on time and on target.

Stats

Suggested Time

120 Minutes

Level of Difficulty

Moderate

Materials Needed

Pens, paper, Post-its, Calendar

Participants

Design team, key stakeholders and partners


Process Phase

You’ve got a concept you feel great about and you’ve tested it in the world. Now you’ll need to create a plan for how you’re going to implement it. A Roadmap prompts you to gather the key stakeholders in your project and collectively figure out a timeline and who is responsible for which elements of the project. You’ll determine important milestones in the life of your solution and define what success looks like at different stages of implementation.

Steps

  1. Assemble your design team as well as any key partners or staff responsible for implementing your solution. They’ll have information that you may not realize but is crucial to implementation.
  2. Print out a big calendar for the next year or 18 months and use it to map out what needs to happen when. Start putting Post-its on the calendar with key dates such as a Pilot launch, go-to-market date, and others. It’s easy to get lost in all that needs to happen so think about your calendar in chunks. Answer questions like: What needs to happen in the next month? In three months? In a year?
  3. Identify the various tracks of work that will need to take place. The Staff Your Project, Capabilities Quicksheet and Funding Strategy activities are important ones to complete at this point. Add Post-its to the calendar that help you identify each track of work.
  4. For each major milestone in your project, think about what success looks like at that moment. Imagine success in terms of both your organizational operations, business model, and the people you’re designing for. Are there any external measures of success that you need to consider? Are funders or partners going to hold you accountable to certain standards? Reference the indicators you defined in your Monitor and Evaluate activity or Business Model Canvas and integrate these into your roadmap.
  5. As you add Post-its to the calendar, assign a team member or partner to each track of work. Find someone to own or champion each element of your project, including tracking and reporting data on those milestones, and prepare to hold them accountable to the tasks.

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