There are a lot of accountable factors determining the potential of a ICO/token. Beginning with the developers involved with the project and their backgrounds, how much they plan to raise (soft and hard caps technically), allocation of funds and most importantly, what the project brings to the world i.e its roadmap and progress throughout the years of its existence.
Your mentioned ways should be:
a) About the developers, there are projects who has a transparent team but sometimes they are using fake names. In that way a shitty project will not be questioned. Try to research the involved persons behind those project.
b) Roadmap is always good no matter what. Shitty project can do wonderful roadmaps so in here, they can deceived their investors. In here, try to research everything about the inside stuff of the project using all resources avaiable at the web as much as possible. A good roadmap and whitepaper can't really be a main basis for good project as sometimes all listed there are joke and will not execute at the given time.
this[1] medium post might be of a help to you! good luck and have fun learning.
