October 2020
Building ADVOC8’s Company-Wide Project Roadmap
At ADVOC8, it’s always about the experience. Not just for our clients, but for our team, too. Collaboration is at the heart of how we create experiences, and in 2020, we strengthened the process we use to work together by developing a company-wide roadmap that guides every project we undertake.
Our roadmap is a flexible guide that explains the process of collaboration for each project in as much detail as possible. It provides the who, what, when, where, why and how for every phase of a project. We discovered that the best way to build a lasting and effective roadmap is to remember the three T’s: time, team and tolerance.
Time
The process of building out a company-wide roadmap can’t be rushed. We treated the development of ours as thoughtfully as a big client project. We did our homework, researching and brainstorming together to make sure we understood how all of the different pieces of a project can and do come together. Once we had identified the best route and guideposts, we invested more time in writing it all out, drafting, testing and revising to make sure that we got it right — and that our roadmap made sense to everyone on our team.
Team
It takes a village to get a roadmap right. One or two people may lead the process but everyone needs to provide input and buy into the process you’re creating to ensure that it works company-wide.
We used candid discovery sessions that allowed our team to share their assessments of existing processes and contribute ideas to improve. And the conversations didn’t end there. Team members were re-engaged when we ran into roadblocks or needed to make compromises to balance the needs of different departments. Solving problems together produced a roadmap that was easily adopted across our team because it addressed everyone’s biggest pain points.
Tolerance
Hitting roadblocks is part of developing a company-wide process. To move forward, no one can be precious with their work, or tattoo anything into permanence. Coming to the table with open minds was crucial for how we developed an effective roadmap, and it’s how we’ll continue to evolve and improve it
So yes, building a roadmap is a big undertaking. But it’s been worth it. Our internal experience of collaborating is as strong as our process for partnering with clients and that’s even more valuable in 2020, when remote work is redefining workplaces across the country, ours included.