Last updated: June 2024
A roadmap is a visualization of a strategic plan. Maybe you are starting a business, building a new product, or leading a cross-functional project. You need a bold vision for what you want to achieve and a solid plan for how you will turn your aspirations into reality.
Roadmaps are the output of a strategic planning process. You can link goals to detailed work and show the time frame for achievement, given your resources and capacity. Roadmaps are also a useful tool for communicating plans to stakeholders and tracking progress against your objectives.
Jump ahead to learn exactly what you need to know about roadmapping, including:
What is a roadmap?
Basic roadmap components
What are the benefits of creating a roadmap?
Common misconceptions about roadmapping
Top roadmap examples
How do you choose a roadmap tool?
How do you create a product roadmap?
Product roadmap templates
Curious about Aha! Roadmaps? Join a demo.
This is an example of a starter roadmap in Aha! Roadmaps. It lets you quickly sketch out your plans by dragging and dropping records onto the roadmap — as you build it out, you are also building out the data that will help you accomplish it. Learn more.
What is a roadmap?
A roadmap is a visual representation of your strategic plans. It ties together your strategy (the "why"), the work you will need to do to achieve your goals (the "what"), and a timeline for completion (the "when"). As a high-level plan for how you will accomplish your goals, a roadmap helps you picture the work that needs to be done along with a corresponding schedule.
Historically, roadmaps have been closely associated with the product development process, but their use has expanded in the last several years. Today, roadmaps are a popular strategic planning method for businesses and teams of all kinds. For example, many organizations use a variety of roadmap types in Aha! software — such as business, technology or IT, project, and marketing roadmaps.
What is roadmapping?
Roadmapping is a strategic planning approach that helps visualize what you want to accomplish and when. Use it to define the actions and resources required to transform your vision into reality. Then share the roadmap with executives, team members, and cross-functional groups — building clarity and alignment around upcoming goals and timelines.
Roadmap vs. project plan
A roadmap is a visualization of your strategic initiatives and the major areas of work you will pursue.
A project plan is a supporting document that lays out the specifics of what you need to do to achieve those initiatives.
Use a roadmap to define the high-level goals and give an overview of how you will accomplish them. Then create a corresponding project plan to capture the step-by-step actions you will take to reach each goal along the way.
Roadmap vs. strategy
Your strategy lays out the goals, initiatives, and big themes of work that will help you achieve both your vision and mission. Setting strategy provides focus and helps you prioritize the work that will bring you closer to meeting your goals.
A roadmap is a visual way to connect strategy to actual work and deliver against goals. It helps leaders define a workable plan their team can believe in and follow.
Aha! Roadmaps provides multiple ways to create custom roadmaps.
Who uses a roadmap?
As roadmapping has expanded beyond its product development origins, so too have the kinds of people who use roadmaps in their daily work. Managers across a variety of cross-functional groups use roadmapping to help their team understand what is coming next and who is responsible. Here are a few examples:
Executives use a business roadmap to communicate company-wide goals and strategic efforts.
IT managers create a technology roadmap to visualize improvements to existing infrastructure, architecture, and technology processes.
Project managers rely on a project roadmap to communicate a timeline for project goals, tasks, and assignments.
Product managers maintain a product roadmap — focused on communicating the product vision and putting plans in action.
Marketing managers build a marketing roadmap to align groups around integrated marketing plans and all related activities.
Since roadmaps provide a high-level overview of strategy, timing, and feature work, many internal (and even external) stakeholders may reference the team's roadmap to quickly understand how the activities included support the company's goals and initiatives.
Top
What are the components of a roadmap?
The components of a roadmap do not change from team to team. The details may vary, but the basics stay the same. A roadmap should answer:
Why are we doing this?
What exactly are we doing?
When are we doing this?
By including strategic information, time frames, and prioritized work, your roadmap can provide the clarity needed to move ahead. Here are a few common elements:
Goals and initiatives: Show the value that your work brings and how it delivers on business objectives.
Releases and milestones: Answer the question of when work will start and be delivered to market.
Epics and features: Communicate committed work that is prioritized by overall value.
Dependencies: Visualize interrelated work that might impact delivery.
Top
What are the benefits of creating a roadmap?
A roadmap is a promise of what you will deliver, not how you will deliver it. This forces you to be judicious about what you choose to commit to. When each work item clearly aligns with your overall objectives, you can be confident that you are investing your time wisely. Only include the initiatives and tasks that are most important for achieving your goals.
Folks on any type of team can benefit from building and referencing a roadmap. Here's how:
Accountability | Company leaders, teammates, and customers are counting on you. Share what you will deliver and when so everyone can follow through on the plan. |
Alignment | You cannot achieve anything meaningful in a vacuum. Use your roadmap to align different teams, portfolios, or areas of the business so that everyone understands the vision and objectives. |
Clarity | What are you working towards and why? By clarifying strategic goals and then linking work to that strategy, you ensure that the team is focused on the activities that bring you closer to your goals. |
Communication | Transparency is key. Share your plans to show direction, visualize timing, anticipate challenges, and drive conversations with teammates. |
Coordination | Large or complex projects require collaboration between multiple groups within an organization. A roadmap can help you track dependencies and identify bottlenecks to ensure that you deliver on time. |
Related:
Vision vs. strategy vs. roadmap
Initiatives vs. epics vs. features
Top
Common misconceptions about roadmapping
Despite the growing popularity of roadmaps, there are still many points of confusion about what a roadmap actually is and what it is not. Here are some of the most prevalent misconceptions about roadmaps:
"A roadmap is a to-do list."
Some people think of a roadmap as a list of upcoming tasks or (in the context of product development teams) a backlog. While you can use a roadmap to guide prioritization decisions and inform what to work on next, a roadmap is a distinct document. Keeping your roadmap separate from other planning materials such as backlogs or customer requests helps you maintain your strategic focus.
"Roadmaps should not change."
It is true that a roadmap is a commitment — it captures what you are working towards over the next quarter, six months, year, or longer. But since you typically create a roadmap at the beginning of your planning process, priorities may shift. Adjust dates and details when necessary.
"Roadmaps replace Gantt charts."
Some teams that follow agile software methodology may think of a Gantt chart as a waterfall artifact. The reality is that roadmaps and Gantt charts can be valuable (and often complementary). In a roadmap tool like Aha! Roadmaps, you can enter data once — from high-level strategy to more detailed work. Then you can customize your view to display both a strategic roadmap and a detailed Gantt chart that captures phases of work, tasks, milestones, and dependencies.
"A roadmap will slow agile teams down."
Some agile folks think that a roadmap with dates will slow them down from continuously iterating and delivering. In fact, roadmaps can make you more efficient. A roadmap aligns everyone on the team around the goals and plans, providing a clear direction and a way to quickly view priorities. The roadmap is your foundation — it is the "why" behind the "how."
"A roadmap must have exact dates."
If roadmaps are visual timelines, then including exact dates is a must, right? Not quite. While some teams commit to delivering on specific days, others choose to plan in broader time frames — weeks, months, or quarters. A time-based roadmap gives you checkpoints to make sure the work you have committed to is progressing.
Related:
Product roadmaps vs. Gantt charts
Gantt charts and kanban boards — what are they good for?
Gantt chart templates
Product roadmaps vs. release plans
Top
What are some roadmap examples?
There is not a "correct" way that a roadmap should look. How you build your roadmap depends on the information you are communicating — the level of detail you want to show and the audience you are sharing information with. For example, some roadmaps convey high-level info such as key initiatives, while others drill down on the details of activities in a specific timeline.
The best roadmaps show a timeline view of the duration of work items such as goals, themes of work, and activities. Despite variations in appearance, the most compelling roadmaps do share a few attributes. No matter what your roadmap looks like, always strive to make it easy to understand. It should be accurate, up-to-date, actionable, and relevant for the intended audience.
Here are nine examples of roadmaps for product, product marketing, and IT teams — all built using Aha! Roadmaps, which is purpose-built roadmap software:
Business roadmap
A business roadmap shows the most important strategic efforts across the company. These are typically created by executives and then shared with functional teams to inform their own roadmaps. Business roadmaps usually sync with an organization's strategic planning process, whether that is quarterly or biannual.
Each initiative ties to a business goal and success metric. Progress bars show how close the team is to achieving the goals.
If you want to get started quickly, try adding your business goals to the Now, Next, Later roadmap template in Aha! software. You can capture your initiatives in the left-side column of the template and fill in short- and longer-term plans. Once the team reviews and provides feedback, convert elements on the whiteboard template directly into work items in Aha! Roadmaps.
Strategic roadmap
A strategic roadmap visualizes high-level goals and initiatives. In this example, you can see progress against releases that serve specific goals. The timeline at the top gives a sense of when the team plans to deliver the work.
Releases on this strategic roadmap are clickable and can unfurl to show specific features and related dependencies.
You can also take a look at our strategic roadmap whiteboard template in Aha! software. Use it to capture the high-level initiatives you are working towards, along with timelines for when the team will deliver major efforts.
Portfolio roadmap
A portfolio roadmap shows planned releases across multiple groups or offerings. The bars below are in different colors to represent separate products.
Filters up top allow you to narrow in on the initiatives you want to view.
With our portfolio roadmap template, you can display a comprehensive view of your plans and areas of investment, alongside a timeline for delivery.
Features roadmap
A features roadmap shows all work in flight for a given time period. You might see vertical columns or swimlanes to indicate different releases. Note that each release corresponds to a time frame, so it is easy to see when you plan to deliver.
The status of each feature is labeled ("Not started," "Ready to develop," "Shipped," etc.)
Our features roadmap template makes it easy to zoom in on the details of what is coming and when. Link each feature to the strategic initiatives and use colors and progress bars to represent the status of work.
Agile roadmap
An agile roadmap shows major themes of work in a general timeline. Those themes could be product goals or epics, which are groups of related features. The date range will depend on how an agile development team works, but it is not common to see an agile roadmap expand beyond a quarter at a time. The flexibility of agile workflows makes it easier to keep the roadmap contained to just a few sprints or iterations.
Each of the columns shows a high-level epic that the development team is working on —along with key details such as corresponding goals and statuses.
Show what your agile team is working on with the epics roadmap template in Aha! software. This template is particularly helpful for guiding prioritization decisions about upcoming features and communicating when the team will deliver a group of related features.
Go-to-market roadmap
A go-to-market roadmap gives a complete picture of everything that must be done to accomplish a successful launch. The roadmap below includes cross-functional tasks and activities — from drafting a creative brief to conducting sales and support training. You can track dependencies (the arrows) and milestones (the dots) to make sure everyone delivers on time.
This example of a go-to-market roadmap was built by a product marketing team.
Check out our release roadmap template, a Gantt-style view of what the team must do to launch on time. Everyone on the broader team can see dates, dependencies, and key milestones as you prepare to deliver a new experience to customers.
Marketing roadmap
A marketing roadmap shows marketing goals and related activities that support overall business objectives. Depending on the complexity of the organization, you might have a marketing roadmap that separates work by function (such as digital marketing and content marketing) or that visualizes major campaigns linked to specific products.
This roadmap shows how the strategic marketing initiatives map to the overall goals, along with a timeline for completion.
Before creating your marketing roadmap, organize your research and thoughts in this collection of marketing strategy templates in Aha! software. Write an executive summary, capture your marketing goals and success metrics, and include information about your customers and competitors. You can also conduct a SWOT analysis and begin filling in launches, campaigns, and other marketing activities on a calendar.
Technology roadmap
A technology roadmap is a visualization of strategic IT plans. While roadmaps are most closely associated with product teams, IT teams can also use roadmaps to guide their work. Examples of focus areas that might go on a technology roadmap include updating infrastructure and platforms or managing a data transformation. A good technology roadmap usually includes goals and initiatives, new system capabilities, release plans, milestones, resources, training, risk factors, and status reports.
This visualization shows all the work the team must do to roll out new integrations. The window displays more information about the "New data center setup" release.
Related:
Roadmap best practices: How to build a brilliant roadmap
How do product managers build the right roadmap?
Top
While you can create roadmap views in spreadsheet or presentation software, there are several downsides to this approach. It can take hours to manually create even a simple roadmap in a tool that was not designed for roadmapping. You also have to update your roadmap each time you make progress or plans change. And it is difficult to share your roadmaps and collaborate with teammates.
This is why many teams use purpose-built roadmap software like Aha! Roadmaps. Instead of constantly updating your roadmap or worrying about version control, you can quickly create, customize, and share beautiful views of your strategic plans. You can build a roadmap and link it to the detailed work. Enter your information once, and your roadmap will update automatically — so everyone can see how they are making progress towards the goals in real time.
Ready to get started? Try Aha! Roadmaps now.
When evaluating whether a roadmap tool is right for you, consider the type of project you are working on and the specific needs of your company and teammates. Smaller teams or less mature organizations may want to start with populated templates before graduating to more advanced roadmapping software.
Whatever you are working on, the tool you choose should let you link your work to the strategy, create different types of views, adjust as plans change, and share your roadmap easily with others. Be aware that some tools treat strategy as an afterthought, focusing more on project planning or time tracking. Unfortunately, these tools are unlikely to help you make a real impact — having clear goals to work towards is key to successful strategic planning.
Related: The Aha! Framework for product development
Top
How do you create a product roadmap?
Product managers use roadmaps to coordinate a cross-functional product team around a common goal, such as the launch of a new product or a major release. Product roadmaps are particularly useful for communicating high-level product plans to company leadership, partners, and customers.
There are five basic steps to building a product roadmap:
1. Define product strategyOutline your product vision, goals, and initiatives. You may want to do more in-depth research such as creating personas, writing product positioning, and doing competitive analysis to inform your strategy and provide deeper context.
2. Review and evaluate potential featuresYou likely already have a list of ideas that could bring value to your product. These could be your own concepts, suggestions from teammates, or feedback from customers. You can use a variety of models to weigh the value of potential features, such as a product value scorecard, then add the strongest ones to your backlog.
3. Prioritize and define requirementsBreak the efforts that best support the strategy down into smaller chunks of work. Some teams employ user story mapping to stay focused on delivering customer value. A user story map shows the journey of a user’s interactions with the product. You can evaluate which steps have the most benefit for the user, prioritize what should be built next, and define detailed requirements for engineering.
4. Organize into releasesNow it is time to group your ranked list of features into themes or major initiatives and decide when you will release new functionality to customers. You may work cross-functionally with an engineering manager or scrum leader to make these decisions.
5. Choose your roadmap viewMost product roadmaps show major releases over a specific time frame and link those to goals and initiatives. You can adjust the type of information and level of detail you want to share based on your audience and roadmap tool. For example, you may want to include specific features or cross-functional dependencies that will impact your plan.
Product roadmap templates
Roadmaps are incredibly useful for product teams, but they can be challenging to build from scratch — or manually update. At Aha! we offer several roadmap templates to get you started:
Our free downloadable roadmaps provide you with documents that can be used to get started quickly in PowerPoint, Excel, or Word.
Try out our whiteboard functionality with several easy-to-use roadmapping templates.
For more robust roadmaps that include release plans and feature requirements, Aha! Roadmaps has several built-in templates available.
FAQs about roadmaps
What are the key components of a roadmap?
To answer the what, when, and why of your plans, you will want to include a variety of components on your roadmap: goals and initiatives, releases and milestones, epics and features, timelines, and dependencies between interrelated work. In order to make your roadmap visually compelling, you will also want to use visual components such as progress bars, colors, checkmarks, and other symbols. This helps you quickly and clearly communicate the status of work or important dates and milestones.
What common mistakes should I avoid when creating a roadmap?
If you are new to roadmapping, it might be tempting to add every possible feature or idea to your roadmap. But a roadmap is a strategic document. Always aim to connect the team's efforts to the overall strategy, and keep your roadmap separate from backlogs or lists of customer requests. Other common roadmapping mistakes? Not devoting regular time to updating the roadmap as plans or dates shift, not tailoring the information you present on your roadmap to different audiences, and feeling pressure to commit to exact dates (rather than planning in broader time frames).
How often should a roadmap be reviewed and updated?
It depends on several factors such as the type of organization, maturity of your offering, market conditions, and the type of roadmap you are building. For example, a product builder at a fast-paced startup might create plans quarterly and update a features roadmap every week. A product manager at a large healthcare organization might update the strategic roadmap only once a year. What matters is that you adjust your roadmap when dates, plans, and team capacity changes. This helps ensure that everyone understands exactly what you are working towards and why it matters.
