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Strategy/strategic-roadmap-review

Strategic Roadmap Review

A facilitated thinking exercise: look back at what happened, then look forward to set strategic direction — before building the tactical roadmap.

Time Saved

1-2 days → 45 min

Compared to doing it manually

Slash Command

/strategic-roadmap-review

Type this in Claude to run the skill

The Problem

Most PMs jump straight into "what should we build next?" without honestly assessing what happened. Previous roadmap items quietly disappear, customer learnings get ignored, and the result is roadmaps disconnected from reality that repeat past mistakes.

What You Get

  • Business health assessment (strengths and risks)
  • Product health assessment (what works, what doesn't)
  • Customer and discovery learnings review
  • Previous roadmap scorecard with honest status
  • Business objectives with trade-off clarity
  • Leading product outcomes aligned to objectives
  • Strategic initiatives with capacity reality check
  • Split "not doing" list — deferring vs. declining

How to use this skill

  1. 1Download the skill file using the button on this page
  2. 2Add the file to your .claude/skills/ folder in your project
  3. 3Type /strategic-roadmap-review in Claude to run the skill

Best For

Before quarterly or annual planning cyclesAfter a major strategic shift or market changeStrategy offsites and board prepDriving stakeholder alignment before roadmap conversations

Frequently Asked Questions

A structured exercise where you assess what happened before planning what's next. You review business health, product health, customer learnings, and your previous roadmap's results — then use those findings to set business objectives, product outcomes, and strategic initiatives for the next period.

Sprint retros focus on team process at the execution level. A strategic roadmap review operates at the planning level — it assesses whether you pursued the right objectives, whether your product bets paid off, and what customer evidence should shape the next period. It feeds into roadmap planning, not sprint planning.

Most teams skip this and repeat the same mistakes — over-scoping, ignoring capacity constraints, or quietly dropping commitments. Reviewing what shipped, what didn't, and why creates accountability and surfaces patterns that make the next roadmap more realistic.

Two categories: items you're deferring (right idea, wrong time) and items you're declining (wrong direction for your strategy). Each should include the rationale and when to revisit. This prevents scope creep and arms you with clear answers when stakeholders ask "what about X?"