12 minutes
Owners, decision rights, dates, budget and measures Give every roadmap line an owner who does the work, a decision-maker who can approve it, a date, a budget need and a measure that shows it worked.
What you’ll be able to do Write a roadmap line that names the owner, the person with decision rights, the date, the budget need and the success measure, and explain why a line missing any of the five will stall. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is missing from this roadmap line? Draft a roadmap line for your work, including barrier and root cause, owner and decision-maker, date and budget need. Five things every line needs A roadmap line stalls for predictable reasons. The person doing the work cannot approve it. Nobody knows what it costs, so nobody asks. There is no date, so it is always next quarter. There is no measure, so no one can say whether it is done. The remedy is to write five things on every line and to refuse to call a line planned until all five are there.
The owner does or coordinates the work. The decision-maker holds the right to approve, fund or require the change; in a public agency this is often a different person, and sometimes a committee or a procurement route. The date is for the next decision or finished piece of work, not the whole project. The budget need is a number, a range or an honest “to be scoped by” with a date. The measure describes the barrier removed in terms a disabled participant would recognize.
Decision rights deserve the most attention, because they are the least visible. Ask three questions for each line: who can say yes, who can say no, and who must be consulted before either happens? In Minnesota state and county work, answers often involve a supervisor’s manager, a budget owner, a contracts office, an information technology governance group or a labor agreement. Find out early. A roadmap that assumes the accessibility coordinator can decide everything is a roadmap that waits.
Decision rights in practice Who decides Who does Who is consulted Who is informed
The person or body that can approve, fund or require the change. Confirm by asking them directly: “Is this yours to decide?” If the answer is “partly,” find the other part.
The owner who coordinates or performs the work. May be the accessibility coordinator, a communications lead, a facilities manager or a vendor manager. One name, not a team.
Disabled staff and participants who experience the barrier, the ADA coordinator or civil rights office for obligations, procurement for purchases, labor relations where practices change.
Everyone who will notice the change: staff who run the meetings, participants, front-desk teams, and the people who reported the finding in the first place.
A roadmap line The fields a single roadmap item needs before it can honestly be called planned.
Barrier and root cause What stops or slows whom, and why it exists. Example: public meetings have no live captions because no budget line and no owner exist for captioning.
Owner and decision-maker One named role who does the work, and one named role or body who can approve, fund or require it. Confirmed with both.
Date and budget need The date of the next decision or finished piece of work, and the cost as a number, a range, or “to be scoped by” a date.
Success measure The barrier removed, stated observably. Example: share of public meetings with live captions, reported quarterly, target set with the decision-maker.
Fill in one line for your highest-severity finding, then check it with the named decision-maker before adding it to the roadmap.
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Download this published draft Name who can say yes What you can change You control whether each line names a person who can actually decide it, or only a person who hopes to.
What to watch for Do not list yourself as owner of things you cannot approve, fund or require. Do not write “leadership” as the decision-maker; write a role.
Your next step Go through your roadmap and, for each line, write the role that can say yes. Where you do not know, that is your next task.
Words that keep a roadmap honest Owner
Does or coordinates the work and reports progress. Accountable for effort, not for authority they do not have.
Decision-maker
Holds the right to approve, fund or require. Often a budget owner, a director, a governance group or a contracts office. Confirm with them that they agree.
Budget need
A number, a range, or “to be scoped by” with a date. “No cost” is a hypothesis; write it as one and check it.
Success measure
Describes the barrier removed in terms a participant would recognize: can complete, can read, can attend, can hear. “Vendor engaged” is a milestone, not a measure.
Interim route
What people can do now while the project runs: a phone or in-person alternative, a staffed assistance route, a manually remediated document. Every stopped-entirely barrier gets one.
Carry this forward The owner does the work; the decision-maker can approve, fund or require it. Most stalled items have one but not the other.
A budget need written as “none” is a claim to test; a budget need written as a number is a request that can be answered.
The success measure describes the barrier removed, not the task completed: “applicants can complete the form with a screen reader,” not “vendor engaged.”
One roadmap line built with the artifact and checked against the decision-rights questions.
Take the three highest-severity lines on your roadmap and confirm, by asking, that the named decision-maker agrees they hold that decision.
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