The 2022 bear market killed more PM processes than bad managers.
Not the crash itself. The cascading deferrals.
Roadmaps become graveyards of "we'll fix it later" commitments. Every deferred decision isn't just a delay - it's a compounding liability. Technical debt piles up. Scope shifts without owners. Priorities shift without consequences. What starts as a minor adjustment becomes a structural flaw, then a crisis, then a legacy of distrust.
The problem isn't the decisions themselves. It's the illusion of control. Teams assume they'll revisit the deferred items later, but "later" never arrives. Why? Because the cost of revisiting isn't just time - it's context. The team changes. The market changes. The original rationale for the deferral evaporates.
Worse, deferred decisions create a feedback loop. Each new priority displaces the old, but the old never gets resolved. The roadmap becomes a Rube Goldberg machine of dependencies, where every fix requires unwinding a dozen prior choices. Leadership assumes the team will "figure it out," but teams don't fix what they never own.
The real cost? Not the technical debt, but the priority debt. The unspoken truth that no one is accountable for the deferred items. That's when roadmaps stop being strategic and become a series of excuses.
What's the most common deferred decision you've seen turn into a crisis?
PM #Leadership #ProjectManagement
By Kamikun Johnson — I do revival audits for Web3 protocols.
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