Teardown: the roadmap that was really a wish list
How sequencing by volume of requests produces a plan that cannot be built in order.
A roadmap ordered by how often something was requested looks defensible and democratic. It is also, frequently, impossible to execute in the order written.
The failure
Requests arrive as outcomes. Delivery happens in dependencies. When you sequence by request volume you sequence the outcomes, and the dependencies land wherever they land — usually with the least-requested foundational item scheduled after three things that need it.
The symptom to watch for
Quarters that begin with 'first we need to'. Every one of those is a dependency that was invisible when the order was set, and each one silently moves everything behind it.
The fix is not prioritisation
It is sequencing as a separate step. Decide what matters by value; decide the order by dependency and by risk. Collapsing those two decisions into one ranked list is what produces a plan that has to be renegotiated every quarter.
Stop writing PRDs without understanding the product.
Anchor reads your interviews, tickets and docs first — then writes, citing every line.
