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four-bbs-roadmap skill

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This skill helps teams allocate roadmap work across four buckets to balance maintenance, growth, and innovation during planning.

npx playbooks add skill coowoolf/insighthunt-skills --skill four-bbs-roadmap

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---
name: four-bbs-roadmap
description: Use during quarterly or annual roadmap planning, when Engineering wants tech debt work while PMs want features and Leadership wants moonshots, to force explicit resource allocation
---

# The Four BBs Strategy Framework

## Overview

A strategic allocation framework to categorize product work into **four distinct buckets**, ensuring balanced roadmap between maintenance, growth, and innovation.

**Core principle:** If I gave you 100 focus points, how much goes in each bucket?

## The Four Buckets

```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                           RISK                                  │
│           Low ◄─────────────────────────────► High              │
│  ┌───────────────────────┬───────────────────────┐              │
│  │   BRILLIANT BASICS    │      BIG BETS         │  Differen-  │
│  │                       │                       │  tiator     │
│  │   Non-negotiable      │   Large, risky        │              │
│  │   tech debt, hygiene  │   initiatives for     │              │
│  │   "Brilliant" not     │   significant growth  │              │
│  │   just "debt"         │                       │              │
│  ├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────┤              │
│  │   BREAD AND BUTTER    │    BREAKING BAD       │  Transform- │
│  │                       │                       │  ational    │
│  │   Core features,      │   Existential pivots, │              │
│  │   incremental         │   moonshots,          │              │
│  │   optimizations       │   redefine identity   │              │
│  └───────────────────────┴───────────────────────┘              │
│          Incremental                   Foundational             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```

## Example Allocation

| Role | Brilliant Basics | Bread & Butter | Big Bets | Breaking Bad |
|------|-----------------|----------------|----------|--------------|
| Mature Product | 20% | 50% | 25% | 5% |
| Growth Stage | 15% | 40% | 35% | 10% |
| Pivot Mode | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% |

## Common Mistakes

- Calling foundational work "tech debt" (demotivating)
- Getting stuck in Bread & Butter without investing in Big Bets
- No explicit allocation conversation with stakeholders

---

*Source: Anuj Rathi (Jupiter Money, Swiggy, Flipkart) via Lenny's Podcast*

Overview

This skill helps teams run a balanced roadmap planning session using the Four BBs strategy: Brilliant Basics, Bread & Butter, Big Bets, and Breaking Bad. It forces explicit percentage-based allocations so Engineering, Product, and Leadership commit to visible trade-offs. Use it to turn vague priority debates into a clear distribution of focus and resources.

How this skill works

The skill guides you to categorize planned work into the four buckets and to assign a percentage of total effort (out of 100) to each bucket for the planning period. It provides example allocation profiles for product maturity and prompts stakeholders to negotiate and lock in allocations. It also highlights common traps and reframes foundational work as 'Brilliant Basics' rather than demotivating labels like 'tech debt.'

When to use it

Quarterly or annual roadmap planning sessions
When Engineering pushes for tech debt and PMs prioritize features
When leadership proposes high-risk moonshots
During reorgs, pivots, or stage transitions (growth vs. mature)
When you need a clear trade-off conversation across stakeholders

Best practices

Start with an agreed total (100 points) and require explicit percentages for each bucket
Use role-based example profiles (mature, growth, pivot) as priors, not rules
Treat Brilliant Basics as motivating product quality investments, not punishment
Run the allocation exercise live with reps from Engineering, Product, and Leadership
Record the agreed allocation and translate it into committed capacity and measurable outcomes

Example use cases

A mature product team locks in 20/50/25/5 allocation to protect stability while funding innovation
A growth-stage startup shifts to 15/40/35/10 to chase expansion while keeping core use reliable
During a company pivot, leadership uses a 10/20/30/40 split to commit to transformation work
Product and Engineering resolve a roadblock by converting vague requests into % allocations tied to sprint capacity
PMs defend time for user-facing polish by placing it clearly in Bread & Butter vs Brilliant Basics

FAQ

What if stakeholders disagree on percentages?

Use provided role-based profiles as starting points, run a short negotiation round, then vote or escalate to a decider. Make trade-offs explicit and document rationale.

How often should allocations change?

Revisit allocations each planning cycle or when the company stage shifts; small tweaks are fine, large shifts should follow strategic milestones.