Today, I will be talking about roadmapping. Tomorrow, I will be discussing how to refold the roadmaps. Joking aside, roadmaps are a crucial tool for working on projects of any size. Of the companies where I have worked, those that used well-crafted roadmaps often succeeded more than those that those that neglected their roadmap. I have used many roadmaps with my personal projects. In this blog, I will be discussing the creation and usage of roadmaps.

Currently, I have three roadmaps for the Pegamoose Games website. I have developed other roadmaps for my more recent books, which I refer to as IPCs (Indie Publishing Checklists). These checklists are for the entire story publishing process, from outlining an idea to providing a post-production marketing checklist, and every step in between. Essentially, outlines and checklists are forms of roadmaps. They are a series of checkpoints helping navigate to a desired goal.

Why does Pegamoose Games need three roadmaps? Because, one is for the epic journey and the other two are major side-quests. The main roadmap states what to do to help build and run my business, and features for the website to support the business. The other two are for two game engines, which will be key products for the business: one for Peggy (tabletop game engine), and one for Reggie (role playing game engine).

Developing a Roadmap

The first thing to designing a well-crafted roadmap is to hire a really good cartographer and a professional origamist to fold your maps. More jokes. No cartography or folding are necessary when designing a roadmap, but it will require work.

Above, I mentioned IPCs and outlines., because developing a roadmap is similar to outlining a story. They are called roadmaps because it can be like planning an epic journey. You know where you are starting from and you know your destination. Break down that journey to figure out the points of interest along the way.

Two Points

Start with the beginning and end points. What do you currently have? What are you trying to achieve? Where do all the other dots come from to connect the beginning and the end? I suggest as much brainstorming as necessary to start filling in the details. Do not dismiss any ideas, and do not stress over any missing details.

Brainstorming

To kick off the brainstorming, consider the difference between what you already have and what you need. For example, I have a website for Pegamoose Games, but the goal is to allow people to play games online. What do I need? Player accounts? Games to play? Maybe a store to facilitate what games players want to play? Maybe a leaderboard? This is great! Four additional points on the map!

Each of those midpoints may require more granular brainstorming to iron out additional details our journey. We start with the site having no player accounts, and work towards establishing the winner of a game. What happens in between those points? Do not stress over organization during the brainstorming phase. Just get all those ideas out and noted. In fact, you might consider brainstorming onto Post-It notes or index cards for when you do begin organization.

Organizing

We now have ideas all over the place. How should we go about organizing these ideas into something more linear? First, group ideas together into piles that make sense. Let’s take player features as an example. Each player needs and account. Their account most likely will need a profile. We might include password recovery in the event a player cannot log in. Players will friend and block other players. Players have a set of games they have purchased. Players will need a way to invite others to play a game. Some players may have active game sessions. These are all important aspects of the site involving the players, but it is a bit of a mishmash of different things players have or can do. It is messy, but a good start. You might even wonder if Player Accounts belongs with the pile of Player-related ideas or the Access Control-related ideas. Either pile is fine at this point.

Ordering

Now we have vague piles of ideas, grouped by concepts that may overlap with other groups. Start ordering those piles into a logical progression. You may start at the beginning. Typically, I organize better starting with the end and working backwards. Eventually, I will bounce around to help smooth the progression. The end goal is to have players playing online games. Games and Players fall before the end goal. Which is first? We need Games to attract Players to the site. Good. Games is now before Players. But, Players are needed before there can be a Game Session. Ah. This is where logic begins to divide those piles. There is now a new pile for Game Sessions which is after another pile for Game Design. And, a Player Account pile is before the Player Sessions pile. Continue this process enough, and there is general outline as the first draft of a Roadmap. Congratulations! We can finally get this show on the road!

Detours

Adjusting

Once the roadmap has a logical progression between the beginning and the end, it is time to kick off the journey. Start at the beginning to work your way towards the ultimate end goal. Uh oh. Things were going fine, but we have hit a snag!

Like any road trip, keep in mind you may need to deviate from your route. Recalculating and adjusting the roadmap along the way is essential. This is why map systems don’t continue to follow the same route when the driver deviates. It may nag you to get back to where it thinks you should be, but unforeseen things happen and there may be setbacks.

The roadmap is not set in stone and should be referenced and modified as often as necessary. As the project evolves and has setbacks, the roadmap should be edited to accommodate for the evolving landscape. Like the long car trips we had as a kid, we sometimes took detours to visit a corn maze or see the world’s biggest horse shoe. Then, we checked the map and returned to our plotted route. Going off on tangents happens all the time, and is nothing to stress about. Recalculate your route and keep going as best you can.

Documenting

One other thing I recommend is documenting the journey. For development projects, this may be in the form of detailed design docs and work tickets. For writing, this may be keeping a bible of events and characters. Any time you associate adequate documentation while following the roadmap, these details act like the map’s legend, providing key information to reference to help better understand where you are going and why.

There have been times when I do not provide enough details, and I begin to question my design decisions. I may go off on unnecessary tangents or second guess a design, develop a different way, and realize why I settled on the original design.

Other times, I may have provided enough details, but some new factor is introduced which may impact various points on the roadmap. I can refer to all my notes to better decide what is best approach for getting things back on track. Things happen. Refer to the roadmap, make changes where necessary, and keep moving forward.

Driving Blind

This seems like an awful lot of work. Are roadmaps really necessary? For bigger projects, yes, some form of roadmap is necessary. If the project is small enough, you may not need an elaborate roadmap. You may not think you need a roadmap, but even when you microwave a meal, how often do you double check how much time it should be heated? Those microwave instructions are a roadmap in a basic form.

When you progress through the same steps over and over, you may realize you no longer need a roadmap. Just like going to the store each week, you most likely do not need your GPS system, unless there is traffic or construction diverting your memorized route.

I do not need a recipe to make a breakfast scramble. I generally know what to add and when and how long to cook it. But, designing games and self publishing a book is not the same as whipping together a few ingredients into a meal. When necessary, I recommend providing some form of roadmap.

In the writing world, we refer to those who follow roadmaps versus those who do not as Plotters and Pantsers. The Plotters make plans. They take time to create an outline for the story and a checklist to get it published. They adjust their plans based on feedback. The Pantsers, on the other hand, “fly by the seat of their pants”. They make it up as they go. They start a story, throw in some characters, and see what those characters get up to and where the story goes. I do not know how Pantsers do it. Some are good at making it all up as they go along. Not me. I am a definite Plotters. Even this blog started with an idea, evolved into an outline, and became this blog. I even adjusted and edited out bits as I wrote it.

What type of worker are you? Are you a Plotters or a Pantser?

What kind of roadmaps help you with your projects?