Consulting Implementation Roadmap Template
Four documents and four sheets that sequence approved recommendations against real committed hours and refuse any phase paying off only if the next one happens.
Free download · No account needed
Capacity Check · quarter one · Ferndale Bakeries, four sites, 620 staff
Same 35 days, same quarter, nobody over
| Named owner | Change days available | As drafted | Resequenced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dawn Reilly, operations director | 9 · site duty one week in four | 17 · over by 8 | 8 |
| Ellie Vance, finance manager | 3 · close to 24 Jan, audit 3 to 21 Feb | 13 · over by 10 | 0 |
| Mo Farrow, head of supply chain | 7.5 · depot cover across two sites | 5 | 5 |
| Sanjay Bhatt, IT manager | 12 | 0 · 12 idle | 12 |
| Priya Raval, technical manager | 6 · audit window opens 12 Mar | 0 · 6 idle | 4 |
| Gary Okafor, engineering manager | 6 · callout rota | 0 · 6 idle | 6 |
The drafted quarter is not too big. It is on the wrong people. Thirty of its 35 days belong to two managers who have twelve between them, while 24 days of capacity sit on three people nobody scheduled. Quick wins first is how that happens, because the quickest wins are always in operations and finance.
Ellie Vance has three days this quarter, not nine. Year-end close runs to 24 January and audit fieldwork sits in February. The org chart shows a finance manager with a team. The calendar shows six weeks in which she answers nothing else.
Available days come from the owner, stated in days a month, net of the duty rota. No figure in this sheet was derived from a percentage of a full-time equivalent.
Search this and you get a Gantt chart. Phases across the top, initiatives down the side, a bar per initiative, an owner column and a 30/60/90 split. The better results tell you to give every initiative an accountable executive, a first deliverable, a predecessor and a measure, which is right. Then they hand you a grid with a column called Owner and nothing that checks whether the person you typed into it has a single free day between now and April.
Client change work is done by the people already running the business, and a handful of them own most of it. Nine of eleven initiatives here name one of four people. So the roadmap is built against real available days per named owner per month, net of the shift rota, the year-end close and the peak season. Any quarter that asks more of somebody than they have gets resequenced rather than shipped hopeful.
Every phase has to pay off on its own. FAR 39.103 requires each increment of a modular acquisition to be a workable solution that does not depend on any subsequent increment to perform its principal functions. It also requires the structure to leave the buyer free not to buy the next one. Applied to a client roadmap, a foundations phase that delivers nothing unless phase two is funded is not a phase. Start from the approved recommendations and their decision log, or take the files blank.
What's in the pack
Initiative Register
Reference, initiative, named owner, client days, and the benefit that lands if the client stops after this one. Where that benefit is money, the value model priced against their own account codes supplies the figure.
Capacity Check
Available change days per named owner per quarter, net of the duty rota and the close, against what the drafted plan asks of them, plus the threshold that sends the phase back for a decision.
Sequencing and Dependencies
Phase windows with predecessors, the load against each owner's real capacity, and every initiative that had to move with the reason written on its own row.
Blackout Calendar
The client's own closed windows: close, audit fieldwork, certification window, pay review, peak build and shutdown, each naming who it removes and what cannot run.
Roadmap Narrative
The phases as prose for the board paper, including the initiative that cannot start for thirteen months and the arithmetic that puts it there.
Phasing Rationale
Why each initiative sits where it does, which ones were merged for paying off nothing alone, and which dependencies the client believed in that do not exist.
Dependency Note
The hard predecessors with what each one actually blocks, separated from the sequencing preferences that can be traded when a quarter has to change.
What a Phase Has to Deliver
The standalone test, the rule against a phase that commits the client to buying the next one, and the demotion of a foundations phase to a funded task.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Open the pack in River and send the approved recommendations with the client's headcount, duty rotas and calendar, or download the Word documents and CSV sheets and fill them in yourself.
- 2
Get the real days
Ask each named owner how many days a month they have for this, then subtract the duty rota, the callout weeks and the close. Ask the owner, never the org chart.
- 3
Test every phase alone
Each phase states what lands if the client stops there. Anything paying off nothing on its own becomes a funded task inside the phase whose benefit it enables.
- 4
Resequence, then commit
Move work off the two people carrying it onto the capacity nobody scheduled, check every window against the blackout calendar, then put the dates in front of the sponsor.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. The zip is Word documents and CSV sheets, no account and no card. Edit with AI is the optional half: the agent reads the approved recommendations, pulls the real available days per owner, and resequences the phases against the client's own calendar. The rest sit in the template library.
What format are the downloaded files?
Four Word documents and four CSV sheets in one zip. The registers open in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets with the columns already set: client days, available days, variance, and the reason an initiative moved. The narrative and the standard are .docx.
Why does the capacity check matter more than the timeline?
Because a date nobody can staff is not a plan. Federal award rules treat a named person's time as a term: 2 CFR 200.308 requires prior written approval for a change in key personnel named in the award, or a 25 percent cut in the time they devote to it. Put the roadmap on the same footing.
The client will not tell me how much time their people have. Now what?
Ask the owner, not the sponsor, and ask in days a month rather than in percentages. Then subtract the duty rota, the callout weeks and the close. An operations director covering site duty one week in four has three days a month, and the plan that assumed ten was always fiction.
What is wrong with a foundations phase?
It is a task, not a phase. A phase states what lands if the client stops after it, and a data foundations phase lands nothing until the phase that uses the data is funded. So it gets folded into that one and carries its benefit, which is also how it gets approved.
Where do the initiatives come from?
From the decisions, not the report. Recommendations approved with a named owner and a date, which is what the finding and decision registers produce. If the argument is still being built, the storyline and its slide plan comes first and this pack starts once the board says yes.
Is this the project plan for my own engagement?
No. That plan runs your six weeks and ends at the readout. This one starts the day after and belongs to the client's people, which is why every capacity number in it is theirs rather than yours. The intake pack covers the engagement's own plan.
Sequence it against real people
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or send River the approved recommendations with the client's rotas and calendar and get the phases back resequenced.
Edit with AI