Only 15–20% of roadmapped projects are delivered as planned—here's how to transform your operational approach
The Reality of Roadmap Delivery
The numbers are sobering. Across multiple organisations and industries, the data consistently reveals that a mere 15–20% of projects within quarterly roadmaps are delivered according to the original plan. This operational inefficiency creates significant waste, as teams find themselves working on projects that ultimately never materialise.
What happens to the remaining 80–85% of projects?
- 30% face delays or extensions beyond planned deadlines
- 30–35% are cancelled outright, often after substantial work has been invested
- 20–25% are added during execution, disrupting carefully planned workflows
These are not merely scheduling inconveniences—they represent fundamental operational failures that impact productivity, morale, and the bottom line.
The Hidden Costs of Poor Planning
Consider this scenario: if a team of two specialists dedicates 15 days each to a project that is ultimately deprioritised and cancelled, the organisation has effectively wasted 30 working days, approximately £12,000 in direct costs alone.
The true cost, however, extends beyond balance sheets. When professionals repeatedly invest time and creative energy into projects that never come to fruition, trust erodes and motivation diminishes. The sense of urgency and commitment inevitably wanes as teams begin to anticipate failure rather than success.
Each failed roadmap delivery represents not only wasted resources but also a gradual erosion of team engagement—setting in motion a cycle that can spiral into disengagement, decreased quality, extended time-to-market, and ultimately, diminished business results.
Root Causes of Operational Inefficiency
When examining why operational inefficiencies occur, three interconnected root causes consistently emerge:
- Limited clarity on long-term vision, priorities, and impact
- Inadequate capability to plan, prioritise, and sequence initiatives effectively
- Insufficient understanding of regulatory compliance requirements
The lack of cross-functional alignment on outcomes, users, features, and technical requirements invariably leads to shifting requirements, fluctuating priorities, and inconsistent direction. Furthermore, regulatory compliance considerations are frequently overlooked or inadequately integrated into early planning phases, creating substantial rework and delays when compliance issues emerge late in the development cycle.
This misalignment manifests in roadmaps developed more to demonstrate ambition than to effectively organise workflows. Based on cross-industry data, fewer than 40% of projects operate with clearly formalised and detailed briefs—forcing teams to piece together requirements from disparate, unstructured sources such as meeting notes, messaging platforms, and emails.
Reimagining the Operational Roadmap
Effective roadmaps serve as visual representations of strategy, improving mutual understanding while highlighting how initiatives are sequenced to achieve business goals. Creating such roadmaps requires:
- Quantified estimates of each project's impact on organisational KPIs and OKRs
- Thorough analysis of dependencies and potential bottlenecks
- Comprehensive assessment of regulatory requirements and compliance implications
- Realistic evaluation of total effort versus actual delivery capacity
- A transparent prioritisation framework
- Clear responsibility matrices
Case Study: Transforming Roadmap Effectiveness
Step 1: Acknowledging Planning Deficiencies
In multiple organisations, we observed operational teams creating timelines with imprecise effort estimates. Resource planning often appeared as vague allocations (e.g., "0.8 resource per quarter") without specifying required skillsets or accounting for practical limitations.
Step 2: Analysing Historical Performance
By examining past roadmap execution, we quantified the inefficiencies—confirming that only 15–20% of projects were delivered as originally planned. This data-driven approach created the foundation for meaningful change.
Step 3: Implementing Structured Intake Processes
We developed comprehensive intake forms to replace vague project descriptions, requiring details on:
- Business goals and targeted outcomes
- Quantifiable metrics for expected impact
- Dependencies and risk assessments
- Detailed regulatory compliance requirements and governance considerations
- Required resources and specific skills
- Clear deliverables and realistic deadlines
- Prioritisation rankings
- Responsibility matrices
Operations teams then analysed these forms against actual capacity, often revealing that proposed roadmaps required 3–4 times more capacity than was available. This data-driven approach enabled leadership to make informed decisions about true priorities.
Step 4: Establishing Alignment and Transparency
Once stakeholders agreed on priorities, consolidated roadmaps were shared across the organisation, empowering teams to focus on key projects and providing the necessary context to decline misaligned requests.
Step 5: Measuring Results
The impact was substantial and immediate:
- Clarity on priorities doubled within one quarter
- Projects with reliable briefs increased from <40% to 91%
- Projects delivered as planned improved by 24%
- Ad-hoc additions decreased by 25% (from 35% to 10%)
The Path Forward
This analysis draws on consistent data across multiple organisations in different industries with teams ranging from 20–70 professionals. The findings underscore a universal truth: planning excellence and stakeholder alignment are fundamental to operational success.
By developing shared roadmaps and empowering teams to maintain focus on strategic priorities, organisations can dramatically improve their ability to deliver value efficiently and consistently.
This article is based on anonymised data collected from multiple organisations across various industries over a three-year period.
