A long list of ships is neither useful nor effective without a way for the team to conceptualize the main ideas and how it adds up to achieving a set of goals.
Themes help the team (and stakeholders to a lesser extent) see the big picture and connections between ships. This supports a clearer understanding and leads to better local decision-making by the people fulfilling the roadmap.
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Anyone can follow instructions—performing a well-understood task step-by-step until it is completed. However, most challenges a startup faces are not well-understood.
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Roadmaps Drive Valuable Discussions
Roadmaps turn strategy into discrete units that will be worked on to accomplish a set of goals. By drafting a roadmap, you are turning something abstract into something more real. Adding detail makes it more real and drives healthy discussion about whether it’s possible to do it all (i.e. resources, staffing, timeline) and whether it will actually accomplish your goals (i.e. back of the napkin estimates of each ship should roughly add up).