Roadmaps in Catio provide a structured approach to translating AI-generated recommendations into actionable implementation plans. This guide covers how to effectively organize, prioritize, and track architectural improvements using roadmaps within your workspace.

Prerequisites

Before creating a roadmap, ensure the following are in place:

Active Workspace: A workspace with integrated architecture data from your subscriptions
Generated Recommendations: At least one recommendation batch generated from your architecture and context data
Defined Business Goals: Context entries that reflect your organization's priorities, constraints, and strategic objectives

Note: Roadmaps are built from recommendations. If your workspace has no generated recommendations, you will not have content available to add to a roadmap. See Recommendations for details on how recommendations are generated.

Understanding the Roadmap Workflow

Roadmaps serve as the bridge between Catio's analytical output and your team's execution plan. The general workflow follows this sequence:

Review Recommendations: Evaluate AI-generated recommendations in the Recommendations module, paying attention to the target architecture, gap analysis, and recommended actions for each
Create a Roadmap: Define a roadmap with a clear name and description that aligns with a specific initiative, objective, or planning cycle
Add Recommendations: Use the Add Recommendations modal to search, filter, and select relevant recommendations for your roadmap
Organize and Prioritize: Sequence recommendations based on priority classification (adopt now, adopt later, hold), business impact, and technical dependencies
Track Progress: Monitor completion percentage and status updates as your team implements changes

Structuring Your Roadmap

How you structure a roadmap depends on the scope of the initiative. Below are common approaches for organizing roadmaps within Catio.

By Initiative

Create separate roadmaps for distinct projects or strategic objectives:

Post-Acquisition Integration: Group recommendations related to consolidating tech stacks after an M&A event
Cloud Migration: Isolate recommendations specific to migrating on-premise systems to cloud infrastructure
Cost Optimization: Focus on recommendations that reduce redundancy, improve resource utilization, or eliminate underperforming components

By Priority Classification

Organize recommendations using Catio's built-in priority levels:

Adopt Now: High-impact, low-risk changes that deliver immediate value
Adopt Later: Strategic improvements that require additional planning, resources, or sequencing
Hold: Recommendations to revisit after dependencies are resolved or business conditions change

By Architecture Domain

Use the Domain filter in the Add Recommendations modal to group recommendations by technical area:

Infrastructure: Compute, networking, and foundational systems
Data Architecture: Databases, pipelines, and analytics
IAM: Authentication, authorization, and access management
Monitoring: Observability, logging, and alerting
Network Security: Firewalls, intrusion detection, and secure network design

Note: A single recommendation can only belong to one roadmap. Plan your roadmap structure before adding recommendations to avoid reorganization later.

Filtering Recommendations for Your Roadmap

When adding recommendations to a roadmap, the Add Recommendations modal provides several filters to narrow results:

Search: Locate specific recommendations by keyword or title
Domain: Filter by architecture domain (e.g., Infrastructure, Data Architecture, API)
Benefit: Filter by expected benefit category
Batch: Filter by recommendation generation date to focus on the most recent analysis

These filters allow you to build focused roadmaps without manually sorting through your entire recommendation set.

Tracking Progress

Each roadmap displays a completion percentage based on the status of its associated recommendations. The roadmap list view shows:

Completion Percentage: Visual progress ring indicating overall roadmap progress
Recommendation Count: Total number of recommendations assigned to the roadmap
Individual Status: Each recommendation within the roadmap displays its current status (Title, Benefit, Status columns)

Regularly review roadmap progress to identify stalled recommendations, adjust priorities, and communicate status to stakeholders.

Use Cases

Enterprise Architecture Rationalization

After integrating data from multiple subscriptions, use roadmaps to organize recommendations into a phased rationalization plan. Start with high-priority "adopt now" items that address critical redundancies or security gaps, then sequence longer-term improvements into subsequent roadmaps.

Stakeholder Communication

Roadmaps provide a structured view of planned architectural changes that can be shared with leadership, engineering teams, and cross-functional stakeholders. The completion percentage and status tracking offer visibility into progress without requiring technical deep-dives.

Quarterly Planning Alignment

Create roadmaps aligned with quarterly business objectives. Filter recommendations by the most recent batch to ensure your roadmap reflects the latest analysis, then organize by priority to match resource availability and sprint capacity.

Using Roadmaps in Your Planning