The roadmap that was mine

What happened

I spent six weeks building our team's roadmap. Talked to customers, modeled the bets, wrote the doc, ran the trade-offs past every stakeholder who'd give me twenty minutes. It was mine in the way that work is yours when you've actually done it.

When it came time to present to leadership, my manager asked the senior PM on the team, a guy who'd joined eight weeks earlier, to "walk them through it." I was in the room. I'd assumed I was presenting. I wasn't.

He did a good job. He'd read my doc closely, which I'll give him. At the end, the VP said "this is exactly the kind of strategic thinking we need from this team, great work." He was looking at the guy. The guy said thanks. I smiled. I said something like "yeah, it came together really well as a team." And then I went back to my desk and felt sick for the rest of the day.

What I did

Nothing, in the moment. I did the Strategic Smile so hard my face hurt. I told myself it didn't matter who presented, the work was the work, leadership would figure out it was mine eventually. They did not figure it out eventually. At the next promo cycle, the "strategic thinking" the VP remembered was attached to his name, not mine.

I also did the thing where I assumed someone would correct the record for me. My manager knew it was my roadmap. I waited for him to say so. He didn't. He wasn't malicious, he just genuinely didn't register that the credit had landed on the wrong person, because the room had handed it to the guy and the guy had taken it and that was that.

What I wish I'd done

I wish I'd asked to present my own work before the meeting, in writing, casually: "I built this, I'd love to walk leadership through it." Not a confrontation. Just claiming the room before it got assigned to someone else.

And I wish that when the VP said "great work" to the wrong person, I'd said, warmly, in one sentence: "Thank you, I'm really proud of how this roadmap came together, I've been living in it for six weeks." Not bitter. Just true, and on the record, while everyone was still in the room. The window to do that is about four seconds wide and I let it close because I was busy managing my face.

What I know now

The work does not speak for itself. I really believed it would, and that belief cost me a level. Credit is assigned in the room, in real time, and if you're not the one assigning it, someone else will, and they will not assign it to you by accident.

I keep a brag doc now. Every shipped thing, with my name and the date and the outcome. When the Credit Redirect happens, and it still happens, I have receipts and I use them, lightly, immediately. I also amplify other women in meetings now, out loud, "that was R.'s idea," because the fastest way out of this is women refusing to let it happen to each other.