Published cartoon ·
Can you add that to the roadmap?
A place on the map comes without fuel for the journey.
Why this one bites
A light-bulb idea is placed beside a road stretching into the distance. The fuel gauge reads empty. Inclusion makes the proposal look acknowledged and planned, even though nothing in the image provides the means to reach it.
The cartoon satirises the roadmap as a holding place for unfunded intentions. A real plan connects priorities with capacity; this one offers an official-looking destination in place of a resource decision. The idea can remain on the map indefinitely without anybody setting off.
Accessible summary
- A smiling figure positions a glowing bulb beside a long winding road. A large fuel gauge points to empty.
- The caption describes putting an idea somewhere official-looking where it can remain without funding.
Reading notes
A roadmap can communicate intention without pretending to be a detailed delivery schedule. The trouble starts when different readers give the same mark different meanings. Leadership sees an aspiration, a customer sees a promise and a team sees another item competing for an already committed budget. Everyone leaves the discussion satisfied because nobody has yet compared those interpretations.
The empty fuel gauge is the practical counterweight to the distant idea. A route can be drawn without providing the people, time or decisions needed to travel it. Adding another destination costs almost nothing on paper. Reaching it may require removing an existing commitment. If the roadmap never identifies that exchange, its apparent completeness comes from recording every wish and resolving none of the competition between them.
The useful question is what status the addition actually has. Is it an idea under consideration, an experiment with a budget or a funded commitment? What must be learned before that status changes? Those distinctions allow a roadmap to be honest about uncertainty. Without them, the act of inclusion becomes a small ceremony of reassurance. The requester receives a place on the map while the team keeps the same empty tank and the same unresolved journey.