How I Created a Roadmap for the Birthday Trip of a Lifetime
“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.”
- Earl Nightingale
I create roadmaps for my company, for every product we release, but I also find roadmaps to be a powerful tool from a personal perspective. Companies often develop strategic roadmaps that list out all the really important things they want to deliver. Early on in my project management career I thought, why not use this tactic for my own life too?
Consider the things you’d like to accomplish –
When do I want to receive my scrum master certification?
When do I want to finish my degree?
When do I want to buy a house?
For me, I recently asked myself: When do I want to achieve my next Pilates certification? Then I crafted a roadmap around that goal. But I also have asked myself: How do I want to celebrate my 40th birthday? I decided I wanted to embark on an epic life adventure through Switzerland, Italy, France, Austria, and Germany to explore, eat good food, and of course ski! You see, roadmaps can help us achieve our goals, but also our dreams!
This was a major “release” planned for my personal life. One that would kick-off several months of travel.
It was also a big change, as I live on the other side of the world in Colorado. So, booking travel was a key component of meeting this goal. I also knew that I wanted to invite others to come along with me on portions of the trip so sending invitations and coordinating with others was also a necessary step. There was also plenty of ski practice ahead of departure so I’d be ready for the more advanced ski terrain in the Alps.
Now, you won’t find the details of all these things on the roadmap I created. No hotel options, no guest lists, no contact numbers for various ski instructors. What you will find is the date I jumped on a plan, the dates of my travel companions arrivals and departures, and the dates for various excursions and ski bookings.
Remember: your roadmap is a communication tool that will help your audience when they’re seeking directions.
My audience for this trip was myself, but also everyone I invited on the trip. So, when constructing this roadmap I asked myself, what else do these people care about? What do they need to know?
Dates are the most important. Specific dates. One of the biggest blunders I see when folks are first getting into creating roadmaps is dictating too loose of a timeframe. They might say, “I’ll take my Scrum Master Certification exam in March.” Okay, great…what day in March? The month provides some information but not enough. Especially if there are other steps along the way, like taking a certification training course prior to the exam and updating professional networking sites and resumes after they’re certified.
So, when I communicated with the people going to Europe with me, I know that specificity was key. I included the date they need to RSVP by, the date they’ll receive travel details from me, the dates I’ll be flying to and from, and the dates of certain excursions. Behind the scenes, I’m accomplishing various tasks like looking into bookings and flight options, but my audience doesn’t care about when and how I’m doing those things, they care about the output of those tasks. The output is what goes on the roadmap.
What do you do if you’re unsure of a date? Here’s a handy key that I use on all my personal and professional roadmaps –
To return to the example of our scrum master certification seeker, her roadmap may include 3/7 (in red) as the date she plans to take her exam if she hasn’t yet scheduled the exam through the SCRUMstudy platform.
Similarly, I initially provided my travel companions with a roadmap with one departure date but then found cheaper airfare. So I updated my roadmap to reflect that change in blue e.g. 3/19 (in blue).
My roadmap key also includes symbols that signify whether something is complete or not yet complete. This is a really simple tool for staying on track and keeping those impacted in the loop as you get closer to your goal.
With that in mind, when you share your roadmap with an audience let them know how often you plan to provide updates. If it’s a large, year long plus plan you might tell them you will send an updated roadmap on the first of each month. For my ski buddies, I sent them one roadmap with all the key dates outlined and let them know that they’d receive an update once a quarter and if anything changed.
My trip truly was the adventure of a lifetime! I’m so glad I used tools from my project management toolbox to support my dreams!
Now, it’s your turn. Do you have a dream you’d like to see achieved in 2025? Start putting together a roadmap and share it with those impacted and your support network.