the.com/road map
A plan vague enough to survive contact with reality, specific enough to look like one.
means A step-by-step plan showing how to get from where you are to a desired goal.
from A literal compound of 'road' and 'map' — the physical paper maps drivers once unfolded on their laps to chart a route between towns. By the mid-20th century, Americans had stretched it into metaphor: any plan charting a course toward a goal, political or corporate, became a 'road map,' the asphalt and gas stations quietly dropped along the way.
- origin
- Named for literal paper maps, pre-GPS era
- corporate use
- Promises features with no delivery dates
- politics term
- Signals progress while avoiding actual commitments
- red flag
- The longer it is, the less real