Example data. Fieldnote is a fictional company used to fill all 61 boards, so the examples tell one consistent story.
Scale-up, Karim presents the year to Élise and Nadia, one row per objective, with confidence dropping as the quarters go.
What the team took away
Nadia asked why the customer portal was in Q4 with low confidence; the answer is on the board: it depends on the invoicing link shipping first. The roadmap is published as is, with the confidence column.
How to run it
Preparation
Invite the product lead and the leads of each team that will build or depend on the work. No more than 8 people.
Send the quarterly objectives or OKRs the day before. A roadmap without objectives in the left column is a list of promises.
Pre-fill the board: one row per objective, one column per quarter, and the initiatives already committed as stickies in the right cell.
Agenda
10 min
Read the objectives Read each row header aloud and check everyone agrees it is still the right objective. Delete or merge before placing anything.
30 min
Place the candidates Each lead places their initiatives in the row of the objective they serve. An initiative that serves no row goes to a parking lot on the side, visibly.
25 min
Check the load Count the stickies per quarter per team. If a column is more than twice the next one, move things right. Say the number aloud: 'that is 7 initiatives for a team of 5'.
25 min
Set the confidence Mark each initiative High, Medium or Low confidence based on whether discovery is done. Anything Low in the current quarter is a red flag: either do the discovery now or move it.
20 min
Read it back One person tells the roadmap as a story, quarter by quarter, to the group. Every 'and then we also' is an initiative to cut.
10 min
Close Agree on the sharing format (one image, one paragraph per objective) and the review date. Nothing on the board is a commitment beyond the current quarter.
Pitfalls
Never put dates finer than the quarter on a roadmap that leaves the team. Precision you cannot keep destroys trust faster than vagueness.
Do not fill every cell. Empty cells in the later quarters are the honest representation of what you do not know yet.
Do not let the parking lot disappear. Send it with the roadmap so people see what was explicitly not chosen.
Afterwards
The current quarter column feeds sprint planning. The roadmap is shared with stakeholders as an image with the confidence levels visible, and reviewed at the end of each quarter, right after the metrics review.