Help users create technical roadmaps. Use when someone is planning engineering work, prioritizing tech debt, building architecture roadmaps, or aligning technical and product strategy.
Help the user create effective technical roadmaps using frameworks and insights from 1 product leader.
When the user asks for help with technical roadmaps:
Will Larson: "The first rule of strategy is that if you write it down, then you can improve it. If it's not written down, it's hard to say if this PM is just not a good PM or if they're trying to apply a strategy they've misunderstood." A written strategy provides a baseline that can be critiqued and improved.
Will Larson: "A common strategy that's really good but very boring is we only use the tools we have today. Engineers want to introduce new programming languages, new databases, new cloud providers. A really good strategy for almost all companies is we just use the standard kit we already have." Focus engineering energy on business-valued problems rather than technical novelty.
Structure technical strategy using Richard Rumelt's framework: Diagnosis (what's the core challenge?), Guiding Policies (what principles will guide decisions?), and Actions (what specific things will you do?).
Define a list of approved tools, languages, and platforms. This limits technical sprawl and allows teams to focus on solving core product problems rather than reinventing infrastructure.
For all 2 insights from 1 guest, see references/guest-insights.md