For the Last Time…Gantt Charts are Not Roadmaps!

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked for a client’s roadmap, and they proudly show me their 5000 line Gantt chart. If this is you, then consider this your daily dose of tough love. Gantt charts are not roadmaps.

Don’t get me wrong; Gantt charts are not the devil product people often make them out to be. We’re just triggered by being called a project manager one too many times. No, Gantt charts are a tool like all the others we have available to help monitor and track all the things, and they have their place. Just not as your roadmap visualization.

Before you call me crazy, let’s look at the purpose of a roadmap. Roadmaps are a visual representation of your high-level strategic plan for your product. It should represent outcomes as they align with your product vision and strategy. They should be reviewed often but should infrequently change (monthly at most!). Your roadmap answers the “what” and “why” questions.

What’s more, is that roadmaps don’t have to follow a timeline at all. Some of my favorite roadmaps are horizon-based (now, next, later) or even theme-based roadmaps. For clients that need some anchor in time, I’ll use quarter-based roadmaps. Regardless, roadmaps allow for the increasing level of uncertainty that exists as you move further away from the current date.

Gantt charts, on the other hand, are transactional and time-bound by nature. They answer the “how” and “by when” questions. Every task entered has a start and end date with dependencies and resources assigned (at a minimum). They are updated daily or weekly to track cross-functional dependencies and progress over a fixed time.

So you can see how they are two different beasts entirely, although I’ll admit to using both in a project — to track different things. For example, when launching my latest app, many of my roadmap items became inputs or milestones on a Gantt chart. And then, the Gantt tracked all the other activities around the launch, including things like preparing support, operations, marketing, and facilities.

So, if your roadmap is a Gantt chart, I implore you to take another look at it and consider if it’s really doing the job you hired it to do. Does it provide visibility into the why and the what at a glance? Does your team look to it for validation on the direction they’re headed with their efforts? Does it represent the path to your product vision? No? Well, don’t despair. Stay tuned for my next article, and I will outline the steps to go from Gantt chart to roadmap!!