How to Build Your Project Roadmap
With GATES, budget, and capacity in mind, use these 7 steps to break down your project and get it to done.
A long, unfinished to-do list can be an uninspiring thing — and often brings to mind all of our inadequacies rather than our strength and talent.
Yet by the same token, often the more we consider and are aware of our particular strengths, the more likely we are to start finishing those projects.1
That’s why we chose to share with our paid subscribers Chapter 6 of the Start Finishing Field Guide (SFFG), the companion workbook to the award-winning Start Finishing.
The following is a modified excerpt of “Build Your Project Roadmap” (Chapter 6), which includes a detailed guide on how to use your strengths to help finish your projects. If you want support in all stages of your project, from selection to celebration, you can pick up the field guide at your favorite bookseller, or get the ebook version direct from us.
The time has come to convert your vertical list of to-dos into a horizontal, time-based plan. This may be breaking news to a lot of folks, but to-do lists don’t have to be a long mishmash of assorted miscellaneous items.
In fact, it makes a lot more sense to instead look at that list, and take time to consider what types of tasks/actions are on it: How long will any of these given “to-do”s take? In what order would it make sense to finish them?
For projects, that’s what we call chunking, linking, and sequencing — what we call “the three essential skills to bending time”:
Chunking = Splitting projects into coherent, doable parts
Linking = Joining chunks together so that they hang together
Sequencing = Linking chunks together into a logical order in space and time
Doing this as a part of your project planning up front, instead of every time you pick up your list, can help you be more efficient and effective in finishing your projects and accomplishing your goals.
Here’s an overview of the core steps to build your project roadmap:
Build from Your GATES — Use what you’re already good at to help focus what and how you’ll do your project.
Align GATES to Goals — And use that alignment to determine the best methods for achieving your goals.
Build a Budget for Your Project — Here’s where you get realistic about what this project will cost, and what you can afford.
Build Around Your Planning Needs — Consider how much deadlines and capacity affect this particular project plan
How to Build Your Project Roadmap — With all that prework done, you can use these seven steps (outlined below) to create your 12-Week Project Roadmap.
In these next sections, we’ll guide you through each of these steps, providing worksheets and exercises to help you organize your thoughts.
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