Timeline roadmaps result in a constant barrage of deadlines resulting in:
Made up release dates
Development death marches
Mismanaged expectations
Missed market opportunities
Building the wrong things
Sad product managers






And it leads to a
vicious cycle
that can be hard to get out of:
No one wants to be caught holding the hot potato, missing a deadline, so bigger and bigger buffers are given.
Developer thinks it'll take 5 days, tells you 7, you put 10 on the roadmap just to be safe



Developer thinks it'll take 5 days, tells you 7, you put 10 on the roadmap just to be safe


This is called Parkinson’s Law, and is the reason you always seem to be running up against deadlines, no matter how far out they started.
It's a combination of scope creep and procrastination dynamics, and is unfailingly true


Your execs are now even less comfortable giving freedom to build in lean ways, so try to tie down even tighter deadlines so they feel they have control on their resources and costs


You might be shipping a lot, but you're shipping shit




This is the opposite of psychological safety

GOTO
.... people resort to giving bigger buffers and estimates for their work, in hopes they don’t get it wrong ever again 
This vicious cycle loops 'round and 'round until everyone quits and you're left with a pile of junk for a codebase.
Deadlines = Technical Bankruptcy


This vicious cycle loops 'round and 'round until everyone quits and you're left with a pile of junk for a codebase.
Deadlines = Technical Bankruptcy
Okay, I left this on a pretty sombre note, so I'll follow up with some ways to actually
break out
of this cycle and get back to a healthier way of working:
Here's a thread I did earlier on ditching timeline roadmaps and moving to a lean format: https://twitter.com/simplybastow/status/1168531714832027648


Here's a thread I did earlier on ditching timeline roadmaps and moving to a lean format: https://twitter.com/simplybastow/status/1168531714832027648
And here's how to reframe the thinking around deadlines = incentive to work (hint: they aren't!) https://twitter.com/simplybastow/status/1321105770570809344