666 Roadmap Template

About the 666 Roadmap Template

The 666 roadmap works across three timelines: one for your long-term vision, one that lets you plan (with some flexibility), and a short-term fixed plan. 

This roadmap was created by Paul Adams, a VP of Product at Intercom. He believed that common suggested timelines such as two years or 18 months were either too shortsighted or too far into the future to manage unpredictability or understand the market. 

Keep reading to learn more about 666 roadmaps.

What is a 666 roadmap

A 666 roadmap helps product managers plan and decide on what they’d like to build by encouraging them to focus on three key timelines:

• The next six years: What will the world look like six years from now? And how will that affect today’s market trends? These questions give your team an opportunity to do some industry forecasting and future thinking, thus informing your product build. 

• The next six months: Think of this as a rolling timeline you can update every quarter. Over six months, you can build 50-75% of your product. That leaves 25% to chance, perhaps impacted by things you can’t predict. Progress is possible, but circumstances can change. Adapt accordingly. 

• The next six weeks: These are your most concrete, immediate priorities – a rolling timeline that gets updated every two weeks. Your team is usually across all the details here. They should be familiar with the design work and what’s committed to being built. 

The 666 roadmap method's success hinges on product managers and their teams balancing a project’s vision and significant milestones with its day-to-day work.

When to use 666 roadmaps

These roadmaps help product managers and their teams practically plan while dealing with the realities of week-to-week workloads. 

You may also need to present a 666 roadmap to your leadership or agile development team. Buy-in presentations are excellent opportunities to show everyone your confidence in balancing customer needs with your company's business objectives. 

Remember that roadmaps shouldn't exist in isolation. Instead, they should back up other work your product team may be doing. You can connect roadmap goals to team progress by breaking down initiatives into epics in your product backlog. Break down these epics into requirements and user stories.

Product managers can pitch the 666 roadmap approach to their teams and any external stakeholders as an alternative to thinking in only two timelines: the twenty-year stretch and the six-month container. 

Create your own 666 roadmap

Making your own 666 roadmaps is easy. Miro’s whiteboard tool is the perfect canvas to create and share them. Get started by selecting the 666 Roadmap Template, then take the following steps to make one of your own.

1. Record your goals for the next six years. These are your long-term product vision goals. They can be updated every two weeks to keep your goals accurate and a shared source of truth for your entire team. 

2. Record your goals for the next six months. These are your quarterly ambitions, such as implementing a new feature. Include only as much detail as your stakeholders and team need for each column. Ideally, they should be confident in consulting the roadmap independently to understand the status of current work and long-term goals, rather than asking you for updates. 

3. Record your goals for the next six weeks. These are your easily definable daily team goals, such quality assurance or implementing a functional customization. No more than six goals are recommended per timeline, to keep teams focused between long- and short-term ambitions. 

4. Review and adjust the details for each timeline as needed. Make sure everyone can access the roadmap by updating your board’s Share settings as needed. Staying connected with teammates and stakeholders at all levels by automating updates (such as notifications of new changes) or regularly scheduled check-ins helps keep everyone aligned and motivated.