A finance transformation roadmap names the preconditions, and the dates follow.

A finance transformation roadmap is the plan a multi-entity group writes when an IPO, an integration or an AI mandate changes how it closes. Constancia is an EPM consultancy. We write roadmaps around their preconditions, and the dates follow from them.

A roadmap of 6 phases with a quarter against each carries 6 dates and 0 preconditions. The board remembers those 6 dates, and the sponsor struggles to defend them when phase 2 starts late.

The phase 2 date might rely on 3 ERPs exporting at the same grain, and no one has checked. Written down as a precondition, that check becomes a task with an owner and a clear finish.

A phase 2 dated for the second quarter starts in the fourth because the third ERP exports at a different grain from the other 2. The roadmap never said the grains had to match. The problem arrives as a change order, and the sponsor has to explain it to the board.

The design document for the consolidation had 3 versions in the shared drive, and nobody on the programme could say which was current. The roadmap had a date for the design and no description of a finished design.

The build team built from the second version, and the auditor read the third.

A roadmap written at the budget round, before anyone has opened the consolidation, moves in month 4 when someone finally opens it. A roadmap written after the survey moves less, because the survey finds the third ERP in week 2.

In month 4, the board will ask why phase 2 slipped. A sponsor with written preconditions can name the one that failed and the person who owns it.

A roadmap passed from its writers to a separate build team has 2 authors and 1 signature. The build team learns the group's data model on the group's budget, and finds any assumed precondition during the build.

We write the roadmap after the survey, and the consultants who did the survey build what it describes. The people who tested the preconditions are the people held to them.

We fix the price of the build once the roadmap is written. A fixed price holds only when the preconditions were real.

Each phase on a roadmap should answer 1 question, what has to be true before it starts and who has confirmed it. Put to all 6 phases in 1 meeting, the question usually produces 2 answers and 4 actions.