---
name: roadmap-narrative
description: "Transform a prioritised initiative list into a compelling strategic roadmap narrative. Use when asked to write a roadmap narrative, explain the product roadmap to non-technical stakeholders, connect roadmap items to company goals, or produce an exec-shareable roadmap story. Produces a themed narrative with strategic context, quarter progression arc, an executive summary, and a 'what's not on the roadmap' section."
---

# Roadmap Narrative Skill

Convert a ranked list of product initiatives into a clear, strategic narrative that connects individual items to company goals and communicates a coherent product direction.

## Reads from / Writes to the Brain

If a [`professional-brain`](../professional-brain/SKILL.md) (`brain/`) exists, ground in it instead of re-asking for what you already know:

- **Read first:** `knowledge/strategy.md` (the direction the narrative must ladder to), priority `decisions/`, and feature `entities/`. Run `python3 ../professional-brain/scripts/brain_query.py ./brain "<roadmap theme>"` and carry each fact's provenance tag through.
- **📥 Propose to the Brain:** after producing, propose logging the sequencing/priority decisions to `decisions/` and updating the relevant feature `entities/`, each provenance-tagged. Show them, get a yes, then write with `../professional-brain/scripts/brain_write.py … --commit` (append-only, dry-run by default).

## Working from a brief

You will often get a short brief (a few themes, an audience) without a full initiative list or OKRs. **Always deliver the complete narrative anyway** — do not stop to ask questions and do not leave bracketed placeholders like `[Theme Name]`. Where detail is missing, infer specific, realistic themes, initiatives, and metrics from the brief and the domain, and mark any inferred fact or number as *(assumed — confirm)*. Fill every section with concrete content, not template brackets.

## Inputs (infer any not provided — label assumptions)

- **Prioritised initiative list** (with rough timelines or quarters)
- **Company OKRs or strategic priorities** (to connect roadmap to company goals)
- **Audience** (all-hands, board, investors, sales team — changes tone and depth)
- **Items explicitly NOT on the roadmap** (optional but strengthens credibility)

## Where this sits — the spine's terminus

Last in the product-decision spine: **`/assumption-mapper` → `/prd-template` →
`/rice-prioritisation` → `roadmap-narrative`**. It receives **the ranked initiatives with
their RICE scores** and turns them into a *theme*-level story leadership can repeat. It
adds no new priorities — the ranking is upstream's job; this skill narrates it. *Theme*
and *provenance* are defined once in
[`docs/craft/product-decisions.md`](../../docs/craft/product-decisions.md): a roadmap
narrates in themes, and it may not launder an upstream [hunch] into a confident promise.

## The loop

The failure mode is a narrative that overstates certainty or orphans an initiative.
Phase 1 sets the honesty ceiling; every later claim inherits it.

1. **Inherit priorities and provenance — don't re-rank.** Read the RICE output and the
   OKRs. Carry each initiative's confidence through: a low-confidence bet is narrated as
   a bet ("we believe"), not a commitment ("we will").
   **Done when:** every claim's certainty matches its upstream provenance tag, and no
   [hunch] has been promoted to a promise.
2. **Group into 2–3 themes that ladder to strategy.** Themes are the unit of the story;
   RICE rows are their evidence. For each theme name the problem it addresses, the
   customer it serves, and the metric it moves (the PRDs' success metrics).
   **Done when:** every ranked initiative maps to exactly one theme — no orphans; an
   orphan is either a missing theme or a flagged narrative gap, never ignored.
3. **Draw the progression.** Write the quarter/half arc that shows how earlier work sets
   up later work — why *this* order, not just *this* list. Then the executive summary:
   3–4 sentences a non-technical stakeholder can repeat verbatim.
   **Done when:** the sequence has a stated reason beyond RICE order, and the summary
   survives being repeated by someone who wasn't in the room.
4. **Name what's *not* on the roadmap.** The deliberate no's are half the strategy;
   state them, so the narrative reads as choices made, not everything attempted.
   **Done when:** the "not now" section exists and each entry has a one-line why.

## Output Structure

### Product Roadmap: [Quarter/Half/Year]
**Strategic Context:** [1 paragraph: market moment, key challenge, our response]

#### Theme 1: [Theme Name]
- Strategic rationale
- Initiatives included
- Primary metric impacted
- Dependencies

[Repeat for each theme]

**What's Not on the Roadmap (and Why):**
[2-3 items with rationale — shows strategic discipline, not just prioritisation]

**Executive Summary (shareable):**
[3-4 sentences that could be shared in an all-hands or board update]

## Tone Guidelines
- Write for a CFO, not an engineer
- Lead with customer outcomes, not features
- Be honest about what's NOT on the roadmap and why

## Timeline, drawn
When the themes have a sequence or dates, also render the roadmap as a Mermaid Gantt chart so the shape of the plan is visible (it renders live in the playground; with real ISO dates it also exports to a calendar .ics). Use `section` per theme/quarter and mark key checkpoints as milestones.

```mermaid
gantt
    title Roadmap
    dateFormat YYYY-MM-DD
    section Theme 1
        Initiative      :2026-07-01, 30d
        Checkpoint      :milestone, 2026-07-31, 0d
    section Theme 2
        Initiative      :2026-08-01, 45d
```

## Deeper Materials

This skill ships with support files — use them when they are available:

- **`references/now-next-later.md`** — Now/Next/Later Done Right: Commitment Gradients, Not Date Camouflage. Apply it while producing the output; it carries the calibration and judgment calls the method summary above compresses.
- **`templates/roadmap-onepager.md`** — a fill-in version of the deliverable with the quality gates inline. Offer it when the user wants to work the document themselves rather than have it generated.

## Scoring Rubric (0–40)

Score any output of this skill before handing it over; 32+ is ship-quality.

| Dimension | 0 | 5 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thematic coherence | A feature list with dates relabelled as a "narrative"; no themes | Themes exist but one or more initiatives are orphaned without being flagged | Every initiative maps to a theme; anything that doesn't fit is explicitly flagged as a narrative gap, not smuggled in |
| Causal progression | Quarters are a chronological listing with no connection between them | Sequence is stated but the "Q1 enables Q2 because…" reasoning is missing or asserted without evidence | Each period visibly enables the next, with the causal dependency argued in prose and reflected in the timeline |
| Strategic candour | No "what's not on the roadmap" section | One exclusion with thin rationale ("not a priority right now") | ≥2 named exclusions with defensible strategic rationale — including at least one idea someone actually wants |
| Executive repeatability | Jargon-heavy; no standalone summary; a CFO couldn't retell any of it | Summary exists but is too long, too technical, or reads as compression rather than a story | 3–4 sentence summary a non-technical stakeholder could repeat correctly after one reading, zero engineering jargon |

## Quality Checks

- [ ] Every initiative in the input maps to a strategic theme
- [ ] The executive summary can stand alone and be repeated correctly after one reading
- [ ] Progression narrative shows causal links between quarters (not just chronological listing)
- [ ] "What's not on the roadmap" section includes at least 2 items with clear rationale
- [ ] Language throughout is free of engineering jargon — tested by asking: "could a CFO repeat this?"

## Anti-Patterns

- [ ] Do not produce a list of features with dates and call it a narrative — every initiative must connect to a strategic theme
- [ ] Do not omit the "what's not on the roadmap" section — without it, the narrative lacks strategic discipline
- [ ] Do not write progression as a chronological list — show causal links between quarters (Q1 enables Q2 because…)
- [ ] Do not write the executive summary last and treat it as a summary — write it as the version stakeholders will repeat
- [ ] Do not let orphaned initiatives appear without a theme — either create a theme or flag the gap explicitly

## Example Trigger Phrases

- "Write a roadmap narrative."
- "Explain the product roadmap to non-technical stakeholders."
- "Produce an exec-shareable roadmap story."