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A Manager’s Guide to Roadmaps Creation and Presentation

When you have a new project underway, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the overall scope of planning and the optimal execution sequence. Where should you begin? What timelines are realistic? How can I break down my vision for the team? These are the common questions managers have, and a roadmap is a tool many choose to turn the project pre-planning chaos into clarity.

Table of Contents

What is a Roadmap?

What should a roadmap include.

• Product Roadmap
• Technology Roadmap

Program Roadmap

Project roadmap, agile roadmap, career roadmap.

• Strategic Roadmap

Marketing Roadmap

Main elements of a roadmap.

• How to Create a Roadmap in 5 Steps

Choosing a Roadmap Tool

• Presenting a Roadmap
• To Conclude

Traditionally a road map is a navigational tool, showcasing all the roads in the area for motorists. But more recently, the “roadmap” term found a footing in the business world — specifically, in project management and software product design.

Thus, here’s a more business-oriented roadmap definition:

A roadmap is a high-level document, outlining the overarching direction of a planned initiative. Placed on a timeline, a roadmap specifies the main goals, steps, and milestones of the project.

Unlike more rigid strategic plans , a roadmap is an evolving document. It should be revised, updated, and improved as you move ahead with the execution or obtain new market data. 

The underlying purpose of any type of project roadmap is threefold: 

• Serve as a reference point for main goals and objectives 
• Inform all project stakeholders about the important milestones 
• Communicate how short-term efforts align with long-term business objectives 

However, you should remember that business roadmaps are more than project trackers or visual to-do lists . It’s a higher-level document acting as “a single source of truth” when it comes to making day-to-day lower-level decisions and determining the priority of various tasks and activities. 

Ideally, a roadmap has to count on the following elements to achieve its functional purpose:

• Strategic Alignment : The roadmap has to reflect initiatives, their why and how they were conceived, and how do those initiatives align with the product or business strategies for the organization.
• Schedule: A group of goals without time estimation is just a dream in the air. Due dates for deliverables have to be listed, as well as contingency plans when a key deliverable does not meet the deadline.
• Required Resources: This comprehends both human capital involved in the project, and physical and technical resources that help the organization fulfill its aspirations.

Remember, as a tool, roadmaps have to highlight graphic values. It is not enough to use words and, preferably, avoid their usage to not overpopulate the diagram itself.

Types of Roadmaps 

Roadmap planning is a highly versatile planning technique, applicable across different industries and functions. Below are several common types of roadmaps, plus examples. 

Product roadmap 

A product roadmap is a reference document for the team, specifying product vision, direction, priorities, and development vector over time.  It is a key document for product managers and helps to understand where an organization wishes to be and the steps to complete that vision. 

Product roadmaps are used in conjunction with marketing plans and business plans since they track the development of a product milestone by milestone.

As an example, we can check this video presentation by Airbnb of their product roadmap .

Product roadmap templates from SlideModel

View Template & Download

Technology Roadmap 

A technology roadmap is a document or diagram showing the technology adoption, investment, and upgrades plan for a company. 

Their implementation is meant to help organization leaders to plan when, which and why technologies will be onboarded into the company, preventing costly mistakes. Another application of the technology roadmap is to define when a certain piece of technology becomes obsolete and is due to be replaced.

Technology roadmaps can become immensely useful for companies transitioning into Industry 4.0 smart factory models.

Below we can check these Technology Roadmap examples:

• Microsoft 365 technical roadmap 
• GE digital technology roadmap 

Technology roadmap templates from SlideModel

A program roadmap is a visual reference showcasing the main planned activities for a specific corporate or public program. Unlike the earlier two examples, a program roadmap has a wider scope and can include several sub-roadmaps, pertaining to specific processes such as technology adoption, product development, marketing, etc. 

Program roadmap example

• EU Net-Zero 2050 Roadmap

Program PowerPoint roadmap templates from SlideModel

In general terms, a Project Roadmap is a simple visual representation of the elements bound to happen during a project, with their own deadlines listed. The purpose of this type of roadmap is to keep project stakeholders aware of what’s going on at each stage of a project. It serves as an strategic overview for all the major elements that take part in the project.

Unlike a Project Plan, the project roadmap doesn’t go into such detail as in day-to-day task. Instead, it only highlights critical dates that are required for the project completiton. 

To successfully create a project roadmap, we must include:

• The milestones and the key objectives each one targets.
• Deliverables and their relationship with the milestones.
• Potential threats to the project, such as delays due to production shortage, a rival company releasing a similar product, etc.

Project Roadmap PowerPoint templates from SlideModel

The Agile Roadmap serves as an strategic planning tool, outlining the main elements to work, which and when deliverables are expected. Following the pillars of the Agile methodology , this tool brings transparency to the organization, for both teammates and stakeholders. 

Aesthetics depend mostly on the team’s preferences, but overall they do resemble a Gantt Chart. These agile roadmaps help organizations to work effectively, creating task priorization and improving speed. Above all things, it is essential to determine which tasks have hierarchy rank over others in order to avoid unclear deadlines.

There are different types of Agile Roadmaps:

• Theme-based agile roadmaps: In which tasks are grouped by theme.
• Time-based agile roadmaps: It sorts tasks in swimlane diagram format within a date range. Particularly effective for measuring efficiency in sprints.
• Progress-based agile roadmaps: Their structure resemble Trello boards with a correlation to a timeline. They work in coordination with kanban boards or similar models.

Must-known tips for creating an agile roadmap:

• Build a reasonable narrative around your strategy. It helps so anyone can understand the purpose of your strategy and why your team selected the goals you track.
• Be certain to set measurable goals. What can be measured can be analyzed later on for constant-improvement strategies.
• Watch out for deadlines. Not every task requires a strict due date, so decide with your team which tasks can have a reduced pressure so the effort is placed on critical ones.

Agile Roadmap PowerPoint templates from SlideModel

This particular kind of roadmap has gained relevance in the last decade as HR teams and career coaches use them to help people advance in their professional goals.

Unlike other formats, career roadmaps don’t have to be strictly formal in their graphics. Metaphors such as mountain roadmaps and lane roadmaps are often used to express that career development is a process that involves different stages, with individual challenges per phase. Ideally, they serve professionals to track the steps and deadlines required to take their career to a dreamed level. As a plus, a career roadmap can help students to attend admission interviews for colleges, exposing their views and ambitions in which they include the education degree they are currently applying for as part of that roadmap.

A career roadmap has to include your start point, your destination, and the steps required to meet that deadline. You can list alternate routes if you feel unsure of which career path to take in careers with multiple prospective paths (i.e.: graphic designers who can specialize in packaging design vs graphic designers who are generalists).

Career Roadmap PowerPoint templates from SlideModel

Strategic roadmap

We can create a stellar strategy for our company to increase its sales, but without an implementation plan, that hard effort is futile. This is where Strategic Roadmaps come into play. 

Think of an strategic roadmap as the link between a strategy and its execution phase. Unlike other models, it doesn’t involve just a Gantt Chart model. The strategy roadmap exposes the what and the why for each action taken, so tasks must be listed according to their role in the overall plan. 

Strategic Roadmap PowerPoint templates from SlideModel

Regarding marketing, it is vital to acknowledge the gap between a strategy tool – such as a marketing map – and its subsequent execution. For that very reason, marketing teams opt to incorporate Marketing Roadmaps as mediums to communicate the overall direction the team shall follow. These roadmaps for marketing are aligned with the company’s vision, and generally, they integrate groups from different disciplines.

To start creating your company’s marketing roadmap, you have to identify the audience that’s going to target. Understand their consumer behaviors, and the service they crave in terms of customer support, and then, group the objectives of these different parties:

• IT department
• Customer support
• Marketing team
• Product development team

Therefore, what should you include in a marketing roadmap? Start by laying out the goals and their respective timeframe. Any goal must be measurable. Initiatives from any department ought to take place, as they display key opportunities for growth. As a reference, make sure each initiative, task, or goal has a status next to it, so it is possible to measure its advancement as a sole element.

Marketing Roadmap PowerPoint templates from SlideModel

Roadmaps are a common output of broader strategic planning sessions. A solid roadmap is illustrative and action-oriented, breaking down the overall project vision into specific goals, steps, and checkpoints. All the subsequent project planning activities have to align with these. 

A business roadmap typically includes: 

• Summary of vision — a succinct statement, summarizing the direction of the initiative. 
• Strategy summary — the actions you plan to take to achieve the set vision. 
• Goals — time-bound, scoped objectives you can measure with a metric. 
• Planned features or planned action — a deliverable-based step you plan to complete or a product feature you commit to launching. 
• Time frames — the timeline of when all planned actions must be completed. These can be an approximation. 
• Status markers — indicators of the progress made. 
• Metrics — measures you use to quantify the progress and determine if you meet the set goals. 

Certainly, your roadmap planning template can have somewhat different elements, especially if it’s a field roadmap, created for a specific business process or sub-area. Likewise, technology and software roadmaps typically include more elements related to software development statuses, risk management, release plans, etc. 

How to Create a Roadmap in 5 Steps 

Building a roadmap requires some preliminary thinking. Do you already have a clear project vision and execution strategy? Did you collect market and custom data to prove or disprove your assumptions? 

Then, how to create a roadmap for a presentation? You should begin developing a roadmap when you understand your market trajectory, pre-existing business constraints, expected end value, and ultimate company goals. If these are at check, you can then follow these step-by-step instructions. 

1. Roadmap Planning: Think Needs, Over Steps 

A roadmap is a condensed version of wider planning activities. It sets the vector and provides directions for people, responsible for execution. Thus, before you dive into the making, you should formalize your goals. 

Forrester recommends:

“Your product roadmap should communicate what needs your customers face, the impact and value of addressing those needs, and what will be done to address those needs – not the technical details of how those needs will be addressed.”

If you lack the above customer knowledge or doubt its accuracy, be sure to: 

• Conduct a new market research
• Collect and analyze the voice of customer (VOC) data
• Talk to other team members and business stakeholders 

Then use the obtained insights to create a list of SMART goals — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound objectives for your project. 

2. Prioritize Your Goals 

You know, have a list of goals. The next step is to prioritize and place them on a timeline roadmap. Most roadmaps cover a quartal or a year. Few go further than that since the market landscape changes fast and corporate goals evolve in tune with that change. 

Thus, as you look at your list, try to organize all the goals into:

• Short-term (weekly/monthly)
• Long-term (quarterly/annual)

Then place all of them on a visual roadmap. Does your canvas look too crowded with many overlaps? Then you might need to group some goals into themes and prioritize them by strategic importance. Because as Karen Martin , author of “Value Stream Mapping,” says:

“When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.”

So pick your battles. The best way to prioritize goals on your roadmap is to revisit your project vision and think about which steps will take you the closest to meeting them. Also, if you are working on a product roadmap, consider the value different goals will create for current and potential users. Prioritize more customer-centric items. 

3. Select a Business Roadmap Template Type 

Because road mapping can be applied to a gazillion of different projects, there’s no universal blueprint for roadmap creation. This means you can experiment with different approaches and techniques, such as:

Gantt charts

Many managers like using Gantt charts templates (or lookalike roadmap slide templates) to create action-oriented roadmaps.

The definite appeal here is that your team can see all the planned activities, requirements, and timelines in one place. Plus, such charts make progress tracking easier.  Here is a list of Gantt Chart templates for PowerPoint & Google Slides presentations that you can download from SlideModel.

Timeline Roadmaps

If you need to create a high-level external roadmap for informing project stakeholders, a simple timeline usually does the job well. Essentially, such a timeline template informs about the planned activities, plus key time-frames.

Metrics-based Roadmaps

Many technology teams who need a greater level of granularity prefer using roadmap tools from popular PM tools such as Confluence. This is a good option when you need to pull off specific details from planned Sprints or software development backlog. Likewise, road mapping also comes in handy when you need to create a work breakdown structure (WBS) for your project. 

Remember: You should always tailor the format, content, and presentation of your roadmap to your audience. A software development team may be fine with deciphering your release terms and metrics abbreviations in a product roadmap presentation. But the line of business leaders will be far more interested in timelines and concrete outcomes. 

4. Set Success Criteria

Roadmaps feature important milestones and checkpoints which help ensure successful initiative progression. But to be effective, a roadmap (and its users) must have a clear definition of success and how it will be measured.

There are several types of metrics worth using for product roadmaps. Here is a short list of sales and marketing metrics that can help inform your product roadmaps. 

• Customer acquisition costs (CAC)
• The average revenue per user
• Customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) 

And for technology roadmaps, you may also want to track:

• Number of features shipped
• Team velocity
• Work-in-progress
• Sprint burndown rates 

By using the right metrics, you can holistically assess if the progress is happening at the desired pace. If not, you can always tweak your timelines to make more realistic prognoses, plus identify potential blockers. 

5. Stay Open to Changes

Roadmaps are never rigid. They will evolve depending on the market conditions, internal organizational changes, etc. So you must stay open to adjusting your roadmap based on the new information.

As part of wider change management activities, be sure to tweak all dependent processes and tasks on the roadmap, plus adjust the timelines. Then verify that all the proposed changes are aligned with the original project vision. 

Teams and managers must be aware of the different requirements per project when it comes to selecting a roadmap tool. Since every tool is different, there are a number of options to check to create a professional-quality roadmap in no-time.

• Microsoft Project: For those who require the typical Gantt Chart but do not need fancy graphics, Microsoft Project is a classic tool that can help presenters. Keep in mind you won’t be able to work with shapes and other formats as you would do with PowerPoint.
• Microsoft PowerPoint: This is a no-brainer. PowerPoint has in-built templates that lend a hand in creating different types of roadmaps. You can browse for more options by accessing the store available for Microsoft 365 Subscribers.
• Google Slides: If you prefer to work in the cloud, or your budget is restricted, Google Slides is a free tool powered by Google. It works as an alternative to PowerPoint, from whom you can import Google Slides templates and docs, and make them work as if they were native Google Slides files.
• SlideModel: But what if your work requires a creative flair? Many times, we’re rushing against a deadline, and this is where SlideModel’s roadmap templates can save the day. Choose from a broad range of solutions, tailored to the needs of presenters, and edit as required. You can change themes, colors, typefaces, icons, and the contents in placeholder areas. What would usually take a week of work designing elements is as simple as picking a template and editing it.

In case you want to avoid the hassle of going through a ton of presentation templates to create your roadmap slide deck, get to know a faster alternative thanks to the SlideModel’s AI Presentation Maker .

Presenting a Roadmap 

A roadmap typically requires buy-in from two groups — stakeholders and executioners. 

The first is interested in outcomes. This means you’d have to convince the stakeholders of your vision and show how your proposed roadmap fits into the company’s goals. The second group (executioners) wants to get a clear picture of the project direction and specific actions they’ll need to complete. 

To satisfy the needs of both, you may need to first create and present a general strategic roadmap template and then move on to discussing lower-level field roadmaps. 

In any case, to deliver a coherent roadmap presentation, be sure to:

• Explain the general context (the why behind the initiative) first. 
• Remove jargon and buzzwords from slides, designed for business users.
• Focus on substance and concrete outcomes at each stage of the roadmap.
• Err on the side of pessimism, and over-optimism when showcasing timelines. 
• Clarify the business impact of completing the initiative
• Stay honest about your assumptions. Don’t make promises unless you are 100% sure about delivering on them. 

To Conclude 

The purpose of a roadmap is to provide guidance. It’s not a detailed plan for execution, but your strategic vision, presented through a series of steps and milestones. You may not have all the details ironed out yet, and that is fine. Share your preliminary plans and then modify your roadmap as new information becomes available. 

To conclude, we invite you to discover our Free Roadmap Template available for PowerPoint and Google Slides, as well as a selection of roadmap templates below that can help you craft your upcoming project.

1. Overlapped Sections Roadmap PowerPoint Timeline

A roadmap template with a clear message of the forward direction for our goals. Use this Overlapped Sections Roadmap PowerPoint Timeline to explain how each stage of the process takes part as the initial point of a new one.

Use This Template

2. Progressive Roadmap PowerPoint Template

Using the lane metaphor, this curved roadmap template uses visible road signs to highlight key points in our path to success. Ideal for those looking to create career roadmaps using attractive graphics for their CV presentations.

3. Roadmap into Sky Metaphor PowerPoint Template

An example of a roadmap template for PowerPoint presentations featuring a road metaphor. The roadmap template with road metaphor includes different milestones and roadmap stages that can be edited in PowerPoint and Google Slides.

4. Multi-step Roadmap Journey Concept for PowerPoint

Using a racing track metaphor, this journey roadmap template creates a path in which different milestones are laid out, signaling the path to success. Fully editable to your preferences, you can change the icons listed, as well as adding extra information in the text placeholder areas.

5. Simple Quarterly Roadmap Timeline for PowerPoint

If you are looking for an ideal template to craft business reports, this is your go-to option. Simplistic design, suitable for any kind of corporate presentation. Add as many milestones per stage as required, given this template is completely editable to the user’s preference.

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Business Planning, Corporate Presentations, Presentation, Project Planning, Roadmap Filed under Business

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How to ace your roadmap presentation

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Roadmapping doesn’t end once you’ve built your roadmap. The purpose of your roadmap is to visualize a transparent plan across your organization .

To ensure your roadmap is effective (and actually, you know, executed), you’ll need to align each team in a roadmap presentation.

Basically, your roadmap is just words on a page (or screen or whiteboard or wall) until it’s been validated in some form of roadmap presentation or meeting. During a well-executed roadmap presentation, you have the chance to show stakeholders that you understand their motivations — and they have a chance to publicly affirm their alignment. But if your presentation flops, so might your product or marketing strategy.

Wanna learn about the entire roadmapping process from beginning to end? Check out our roadmap guide here to learn the definition, why roadmaps are important and how you can use them to ✨shine in front of your decision-makers

What is a roadmap presentation.

The most important point to remember before your roadmap presentation: this is not the place to get buy-in for your plans. That might seem contradictory. (After all, we just described roadmap presentations as an opportunity for stakeholders to “publicly affirm their alignment.”) But it should be just that: an affirmation of alignment that was already established prior to the meeting.

(If you’re butting heads over the alignment process itself, we’ve written about how to get roadmap buy-in from each department in our product roadmapping guide. And, more specifically, how to get buy-in from executives .)

A roadmap presentation is far more than the words you actually say. Think of it as an alignment exercise whose success depends on what happens before, during and after you take the stage.

This is an essential chance to understand stakeholder motivations and forge consensus before moving forward with your plans.

To get nuts-and-bolts-y, we’ve found that roadmap presentations generally fall into one of two categories:

Short-term updates

Taking place weekly or biweekly, these frequent syncs tend to get in the weeds, covering the particularities of what’s getting built and how that affects other departments. This type of sit-down would be more common on smaller teams. And because these catch-ups happen regularly, formal buy-in before the presentation is not imperative. But the roadmap still needs to be communicated prior to the meeting to avoid any major surprises or backlash.

Long-term updates

For bigger organizations and teams, the roadmap presentation will likely happen monthly, bimonthly or even quarterly. For these conversations, buy-in before the meeting is critical. These meetings can often involve high-stakes projects that rely on massive alignment and dependencies . Show up to your presentation without everyone on board, and you’ll probably leave feeling pretty beat-up.

Before your roadmap presentation: How to prepare

When it comes to roadmap presentations, the pre-game is just as important as the main event. There are three areas you should learn inside-out to ensure a productive meeting:

Know the high-level strategy

Let’s use a product roadmap as an example. You’re going to build feature X, Y and Z — but what’s the big-picture goal those features address? Without being able to speak to the high-level strategy — and the tradeoffs that must be made to prioritize within that strategy — everyone will just start asking for whatever is most advantageous to them. Be able to speak to product vision and company vision — and how your roadmap aligns with both targets.

Check out Roadmunk's free, ready-to-use product roadmap template and make it your own.

Know the stakeholders

We mean actually get to know them: their motivations, their deadlines, their pressures, what’s keeping them up at night. Again, trust is crucial . For example, marketing and sales needs to feel that product decisions are sound — otherwise they might go rogue. This won’t happen overnight. But it’s important to invest the time.

Know the resource constraints

One of the most common (inevitable?) pushbacks you’re going to get is related to time. “Why can’t we move faster?” To counter this complaint, it’s absolutely crucial that you have an inside-out knowledge of your resources at any given time. You must be able to clearly articulate the resources required to execute a given task — and the tradeoffs that will be made if you swap in something else. It can also be useful to discuss historical timelines, reminding the room of how long things have taken in the past.

During your roadmap presentation: What to actually present

There’s no one way to slice your roadmap. So what should you actually show during your roadmap presentation? We can’t tell you exactly how to build a roadmap that suits your particular organization ( that’s where our template library comes in handy ), but we do recommend that you aim to meet at least a few of the following criteria:

1. Flexibility: Does your roadmap distinguish between what’s planned and what’s still TBD?

2. Personalization: Does it address the individual needs of each department and/or stakeholder?

3. Collaboration: Can you iterate on the roadmap during the presentation itself?

4. Clarity + Attractiveness: Does it look good? Is the plan visualized in a clear manner? Don’t underestimate the power of good design .

Below, we’ve included some options for structuring your roadmap for your presentation. With a dedicated roadmapping tool like Roadmunk , you can easily create and present multiple pivots of the same data.

1. Flexibility

It’s helpful to communicate which initiatives are actually in the pipeline, and which are still subject to change. One of our favourite ways to structure a roadmap is to organize items by In Progress , Scheduled and Proposed . If your organization works on a timeline, you can simply colour code the items on your roadmap.

If your organization prefers to avoid timelines, you could also create a Swimlane View with the headers In Progress, Scheduled or Proposed.

Like the way this roadmap looks? It's a Roadmunk template. Check our library of 25+ templates .

We’ve found this roadmap structure very effective for reducing backlash during a roadmap presentation. Stakeholders get a clear and immediate visual indication of which features are actually committed, and which are still being decided. Overall, it means you’re less likely to hear knee-jerk peanut gallery protestations.

2. Personalization

As we mentioned above, it can also be effective to visualize ownership during your roadmap presentation. A great way to do this is to organize your roadmap by department or even by the individual responsible for each task.

The roadmap below includes the same data as the roadmaps above, but we’ve included subheaders indicating individual ownership over each project.

If you really want to get granular with ownership, you could create a Swimlane View roadmap that highlights department , resource or individual owner . This puts the focus on who’s doing what for which department — not the timeline.

3. Collaboration

There’s a reason why the sticky-notes-on-a-wall method is such an enduring way to make a roadmap: it’s easy to change things up on the fly. Although you’d ideally have buy-in for your roadmap before the presentation, your meeting will go much smoother if you are also able to update your roadmap during the conversation.

With a tool like Roadmunk, you can easily add comments or adjust your roadmap directly within the app during the meeting. This makes for a much more dynamic and participatory presentation.

4. Clarity + Attractiveness

The core purpose of your roadmap is to visualize your strategy and make it crystal-clear to everyone in your organization. “Make something pretty!” may sound trite, but you’ll undermine your end-goal if your roadmap is unattractive or unclear.

Start building beautiful + collaborative roadmaps with Roadmunk. Signup for a free trial here.

Obviously, the content of your roadmap is more important than the appearance of your roadmap. But it will be a lot easier to highlight key information — no matter how complicated — if your visualization is easy on the eyes. Also recommended: custom branding .

What pushback should you prep for?

No matter how much you prepare, there are some common points of friction that come up again and again in roadmap meetings. A great way to ace your presentation: prepare for the pushback before it starts pushing. Here are some common questions to expect.

Are you actually going to achieve this timeline?

You’ll most frequently hear this from sales or execs. They want to confirm that your roadmap is realistic so they can plan accordingly. If you have a history of late delivery, be prepared to address why this time will be different. (Then make sure you deliver.)

How can we scope this down?

Just because stakeholders are skeptical that you can hit your deadlines doesn’t mean they don’t want things to go faster. One way to ship features quicker: scope them down. Especially at startups, executives might push the “M” in MSP when they see scope creep getting out of hand. Be prepared to answer why you’ve scoped each feature to its current specs — and be flexible when it’s possible to scope things down.

What’s the value of this roadmap?

Don’t just speak to the qualitative value of each new feature. Be prepared with hard numbers. How will this roadmap help achieve your revenue targets? What specific clients or market segment does it address? You should be able to tie items on your roadmap to specific dollar-sign potential, and articulate value vs. effort.

What are the maintenance costs going to be?

The cost of maintenance is one of the things most commonly neglected on the roadmap — even though it’s one of the most important and resource-draining aspects of any organization. Expect more technically inclined team members to pipe up with maintenance questions, or simply visualize maintenance initiatives directly on your roadmap.

Where are the risks or dependencies?

Sure, the roadmap looks great. But what factors could derail its execution? What risks does each stakeholder need to be aware of, and how will that affect their department’s ability to reach their targets? Also, what steps can stakeholders take to pitch in and mitigate those dangers? The more honest you are about the realities facing your roadmap, the more likely you’ll build trust — and get buy-in for your plan.

What happens after the presentation?

Alignment is a continuous process . It doesn’t just end when your meeting is finished. Make sure you follow up your roadmap presentation with thorough meeting notes and the updated roadmap. Create a concrete space — whether it’s within an email, a shared document, or your roadmap itself — where stakeholders can share feedback.

Reminder! The Number 1 way to fail your roadmap presentation is to not talk to anyone beforehand. Your presentation is all about alignment. Set the tone before your presentation by talking to — and, more importantly listening to — each stakeholder.

With Roadmunk, you can centralize customer feedback, prioritize what to build next and build beautiful customer-driven roadmaps. Signup for a free trial here .

Continue exploring this guide

Design tips to create a roadmap that is boardroom-ready, managing executives in the roadmapping process, you might also like these, try roadmunk for free.

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What is a roadmap: Tips, Examples & Template

Learn how to balance product, business, and technology strategies with effective roadmaps. Dive into project planning essentials and top tools for success.

Hadar Peretz

5 minute read

Short answer

What is a Roadmap?

A roadmap is a visual representation detailing a strategic journey. It aligns stakeholders, sets clear objectives, and marks milestones, bridging current realities with long-term visions for businesses, projects, or technologies.

Balance Your Company's Immediate Needs with Future Goals

Navigating the tightrope of balancing immediate business needs with future aspirations can be daunting. Fail, and you risk stunting growth and missing opportunities .

This post is your lifeline, offering a guide on crafting strategic roadmaps.

Don’t let your business lag behind ; discover how to bridge the gap between now and the future.

How Are Roadmaps Used in Business?

Roadmaps are more than just intricate designs. They are the strategic heartbeat of an organization.

4 essential roles roadmaps play in business:

1) Providing Direction and Vision

Visualizing the Endgame: Picture your business strategy as a football game. Every department, much like players, must know where the goalpost is. The roadmap outlines this field.

Guided Actions: Tasks and projects are steered in alignment with the broader objectives, ensuring every activity contributes to the larger vision.

Review and Align Tasks: Make it a practice to cross-check activities with the roadmap, ensuring alignment with the primary vision.

2) Ensuring Stakeholder Alignment

Unified Vision: Much as a choir needs singers harmonizing, an organization needs every stakeholder tuned into their role. Roadmaps offer this clarity.

Stakeholder Buy-in: Trust in the process amplifies when stakeholders visualize a roadmap.

Update Stakeholders with Roadmap: In your routine meetings, use the roadmap as a reference to keep every stakeholder updated and aligned.

3) Communication and Transparency

Bridge the Gap: As subtitles clarify foreign films, a roadmap breaks down complexities, ensuring everyone's clarity.

Boost Morale: Showing team members their role in the bigger picture fosters a sense of purpose and achievement.

Incorporate Roadmaps in Team Meetings: Use them to highlight progress and outline future directions.

4) Allocating Resources

Directing the Flow: Roadmaps guide resources effectively, much like riverbanks channel water.

Avoiding Resource Crunch: Anticipate and prepare for upcoming needs by having a clear roadmap.

Conduct Monthly Resource Reviews: Check alignment with the roadmap and adjust or reallocate as necessary.

What Does a Roadmap Include?

If you're gearing up to craft a roadmap, here's what you should focus on: Clear objectives, prioritized tasks, set milestones, aligned stakeholders, and a flexible strategy that evolves with emerging insights.

6 Key Components of an Effective Roadmap:

1) Objectives and Goals

The Big Picture: This is the overarching aim, the foundation for every other roadmap element.

Set SMART Goals: Ensure they're Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

2) Milestones and Deadlines

Marking Progress: Like checkpoints in a race, milestones help gauge if you're on track.

Celebrate Achievements: Acknowledge efforts as milestones are reached. It boosts morale and motivation.

3) Tasks and Initiatives

• Stepping Stones: These actionable items lead to milestones and eventually, the ultimate objective.
• Update Tasks Regularly: Evolve them based on changing business scenarios and feedback.

4) Dependencies and Sequences

Order Matters: Recognize task inter-reliance, ensuring a seamless workflow.

Utilize Visual Tools: These tools can better represent task dependencies and streamline management.

5) Allocated Resources and Teams

• Right People, Right Task: Matching tasks with apt skill sets maximizes efficiency.
• Conduct Quarterly Skill Assessments: Ensure team members align with roles complementing their strengths.

6) Framework for Collaboration

Synergy: Collaboration between departments can be more potent than siloed efforts. Roadmaps guide this amalgamation.

Host Regular Inter-departmental Meetings: Use the roadmap for discussions, ensuring alignment and collaboration across teams.

Types of Roadmaps

6 main types of roadmaps:

Product Roadmap: This type focuses on product development stages, keeping customer needs at the forefront.

Technology Roadmap: Tailored for IT projects, it plots out tech initiatives.

Business Roadmap: This gives an overview of the company's strategic vision.

Project Roadmap: For specific projects, detailing every phase.

Strategy Roadmap: It lays out the company's strategic initiatives and timelines.

Marketing Roadmap: Centered around marketing campaigns and initiatives.

How Do You Design a Roadmap Slide?

Incorporating a roadmap slide in your presentations can offer a clear picture of your strategic plans. However, designing it effectively is crucial to ensure your audience grasps your vision.

Here's a dive into how to craft an impactful roadmap slide and the resources that can assist you.

What Makes a Successful Roadmap Slide Design

9 key elements for a successful roadmap slide design:

Avoid Overloading: Too much information can distract. Keep it minimalistic, focusing only on key milestones and targets.

Use Icons Sparingly: Icons can aid comprehension, but use them wisely to represent milestones or key tasks.

Maintain Uniformity: Use consistent fonts, colors, and sizes. This helps in emphasizing priorities without causing confusion.

Stay on Brand: Make sure the colors and designs match your brand for a professional look.

Hover Effects: For digital presentations, consider adding hover effects on milestones to provide more information.

Progress Bars: Show the progress of a particular task or goal using dynamic bars. Consider using goal tracker apps to help with that.

Distinct Time Frames: Clearly mark the beginning, checkpoints, and the end of your roadmap to guide the viewer's eye.

Milestones: Highlight main events or shifts. This can be product launches, reviews, or any pivotal juncture.

Stay Updated: Business goals can shift. Regularly update your roadmap slide to ensure it reflects current plans.

Action Step: Draft your roadmap slide incorporating these elements. Once the draft is ready, seek feedback, iterate, and refine for maximum clarity and impact.

Roadmap Slide Design Templates

Storydoc's roadmap templates offer interactive, easy-to-customize slides that effectively communicate plans to stakeholders.

These template are versatile, covering various types of roadmaps, and are more engaging than traditional PowerPoint slides. A 14-day free trial lets you explore their full potential.

Create story from scratch

6 Tools to Create a Roadmap

Trello: An intuitive, card-based system.

Aha!: Perfect for product managers.

Roadmunk: Offers a bird's eye view of projects.

Storydoc : For those who love a narrative approach.

Microsoft Azure DevOps (formerly VSTS): Tailored for tech projects.

ProductPlan: Simplifies complex roadmaps.

I am a Marketing Specialist at Storydoc, I research, analyze and write on our core topics of business presentations, sales, and fundraising. I love talking to clients about their successes and failures so I can get a rounded understanding of their world.

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Roadmap Presentation 101: How to Present a Roadmap to Stakeholders

What is a roadmap presentation, why presenting your roadmap is important, how to present a roadmap, what happens after the presentation, how to create a winning product roadmap presentation with tips and examples .

Have you ever gotten close to launching a feature...only to be surprised by unexpected stakeholder feedback?

Perhaps this new information caused you to delay?

Or waste effort and time?

Most of us product people have found ourselves in this unfortunate situation. Happily, this problem can be overcome with a bit of planning.

A well-thought-out product roadmap presentation will help you smoothly deliver against your product strategy.

Teams use roadmaps to communicate where we're going with our product. Product managers put tons of thought into them.

Roadmap delivery states are carefully considered. We ruminate over whether we communicate our roadmap in outcomes or features. 

But to get the most out of our treasured product roadmaps, we need to get buy-in from our wider teams and  stakeholders .

Get started with product management templates

One important way to create buy-in is an effective product roadmap presentation to your roadmap to stakeholders. Presenting your roadmap to key stakeholders is a great opportunity to tell a compelling story about where you're going. It's a chance to align and validate your team's roadmap.

Thoughtfully present your roadmap and you will ensure your stakeholders can get behind your roadmap.

You will also reduce the risk of those nasty eleventh-hour surprises stopping you (and your product) in your tracks.

Before you go ahead with your next roadmap presentation, think about how you communicate your roadmap at these stages:

Before: get to know your stakeholders' needs and motivations. Anticipate questions and feedback that might come up in the presentation.

During: clearly communicate with your stakeholders and check-in for feedback .

After: continue to request feedback and iterate on your roadmap presentation.

.css-uphcpb{position:absolute;left:0;top:-87px;} What is a roadmap

Roadmaps are a common way of expressing product direction to teams.

They come in all sorts of different formats.

But one thing good roadmaps have in common is that they map where you're going with your product.

A roadmap provides a high-level overview of a product or project's vision and direction over time.  

A roadmap serves several purposes :

It maps out your vision and strategic goals.

Details how you’ll deliver against that vision and strategy.

Communicates the necessary information to align stakeholders.

Sets your priorities so that you focus on what’s important. 

A roadmap is meaningless unless you can deliver against it.

This is why it's so important to create alignment with your sales team.

You want to make sure they are behind your roadmap so you can solve all the important problems you've prioritized!

A roadmap presentation is a communication and alignment exercise around key business metrics. It is part of your wider ongoing stakeholder management strategy.

The presentation shouldn't be the first time your stakeholders see your product roadmap. It should be part of an ongoing series of meetings or updates to communicate where your product is going.

The format and cadence of your roadmap presentation depend on your organization and stakeholders.

Some common types of updates are smaller check-ins as well as more formalized leadership presentations. 

Smaller team check-ins

You might set up regular check-ins (e.g. weekly or bi-weekly) to talk about your roadmap with team members who are close to your product.

For example, if you are in a small  startup , you may report directly to a CEO.

With a small check-in, you can regularly walk your CEO through your product roadmap every two weeks to ensure she has a firm grasp of where you're going.

These check-ins will give her the chance to feedback and ensure she is on board.

Another example is a regular check-in with the developers in your team. This sync will help them understand how their daily work fits into the bigger picture.

It will also give them the opportunity to feedback on the roadmap.

Recurring leadership presentations

Product managers also use more formal product roadmap presentations to communicate with leadership and other key stakeholders.

This is often the case in larger, product manager-led organizations.

These organizations likely have a well-established product practice and hierarchy.

Your organization may already have an agreed-upon roadmap presentation process for technical teams.

For example, your leadership team may ask that you present your roadmap at the beginning of each quarter, or each month.

This might be a more formal session with less room for back and forth, depending on time constraints.

In these types of meetings, concise messaging is critical. It is also important to have a clear view of your roadmap's impact on other teams, departments, and the wider organization.

This way, you are anticipating dependencies and cross-over between your product team, and other teams.

Presenting your roadmap to key stakeholders is a great opportunity to tell a memorable and meaningful narrative and compelling story about where you're going.

It's a chance to bring to life your product roadmap artifact.

By presenting your roadmap to relevant business stakeholders, you can build alignment and validate your team's roadmap. This will help you and your team avoid:

Stakeholder confusion or dissatisfaction on where the product is going;

Conflicting messages from different stakeholders.

Last-minute stakeholder feedback and unanticipated surprises that might result in wasted effort;

A good roadmap presentation will ensure your stakeholders can get behind your roadmap. You and your team will feel confident that you have the right buy-in to deliver against your strategy.

Preparing for your roadmap presentations

Think ahead about how you'll communicate your roadmap so that you can get the most out of your presentation. Your future self will thank you for putting in the time!

1. Ensure your roadmap aligns with the overall organization strategy and goals

Your roadmap should ladder up to your business’s strategy and goals.

Make sure you've put in all the work necessary to tally your product vision and roadmap up with the organization's strategy and goals.

Make it clear how where you're going is in line with where the business is going.

If your roadmap doesn't fit in with where the business is going, it's unlikely that you'll be able to get key stakeholders on board with it.

2. Identify your stakeholders’ interest and influence

Get a firm understanding of stakeholders' interests and influence on your product. This will help you communicate effectively with them.

Spend some time figuring who your stakeholders are, and mapping them out. A simple and impactful approach to this is the   interest and influence  matrix.

Stakeholder mapping will help you determine who you're communicating your roadmap with, and how to communicate with them.

Take time to think about who will be in the room (or call), and whether you have all the right people you need for buy-in. Review your stakeholder map to help you make decisions about the guest list beforehand.

If the right people are there, you'll be able to have a concise conversation and get the feedback and alignment you need.

3. Empathise with your stakeholders

Stakeholders have different goals, motivations, and challenges. Get to know your stakeholders before you hold your session.

This will help you understand them and create trust. Note that this is more relevant for more formalized leadership presentations. If you're presenting to a close team, you'll likely know those team members better already.

If you don't know your stakeholders before your session, set up some stakeholder interviews. This will help you to understand them. Stakeholder interviews can be informal. They're simply conversations to get to know stakeholders' motivations and challenges.

“Stakeholder interviews will help you understand the essential structure of the organization, how your work fits into the organization as a whole, and the approval process for various aspects of your project. They'll also provide you with some less obvious opportunities to influence your project's chances of success.”  —  Erika Hall,   Just Enough Research

If you are very unfamiliar with your stakeholders, you can approach your conversations with more structure. Consider   some guidelines  to prepare for them.

4. Create buy-in with your stakeholders

You may already know stakeholders and their goals well.

Still, individual meetings are important for creating before your roadmap presentation.

This buy-in is most relevant for higher stakes leadership roadmap presentations.

Even if your roadmap presentation is more of an informal team sync, take the time to communicate your roadmap before the meeting to avoid surprises.

Early conversations will help you anticipate feedback and challenges that may come up in your presentation. It will also be useful to consider how your roadmap impacts on stakeholders and other parts of your organization. Listen actively to understand points of friction and potential pushback.

Aim to get stakeholders on board with your roadmap before your roadmap presentation. Remember that your presentation is to create alignment. You'll be far more likely to align with a wide group of stakeholders if you've created buy-in 1:1 beforehand.

During your product roadmap presentation

1. set the agenda.

I find it useful to spend time upfront being clear on the purpose of a session, and the format. Some areas to cover early on include:

Your roadmap presentation objective(s)

Outcomes you want to achieve with this roadmap presentation

The stage your team is at with your roadmap (are things largely defined at this stage, or is there ample opportunity for stakeholders to shape the roadmap at this stage?).

How you'll take feedback during the session, and outside of the session

You may also want to spend some time aligning on what a roadmap is. Don't assume that everyone knows! Tailor your message depending on the stakeholders you're speaking with and how product-led your organization is.

You can also cover any key principles that underpin your roadmap. For example, you may want to highlight to stakeholders that your roadmap is outcome-driven, rather than feature-driven.

Discussing what a roadmap is and its principles will create a shared understanding before you go into the artifact in more detail.

2. Communicate clearly and address your stakeholders’ needs

Using simple and clear language is a good bet in any setting. Avoid using industry jargon. Accessible language will go a long way to helping communicate your product roadmap. This is especially true if you're trying to align a wide variety of stakeholders.

Tailor your message depending on the audience. If you're speaking to leadership removed from your team's day-to-day, your message should be concise and to the point. If you're holding a more regular roadmap catch-up, you'll naturally want to cover more detail.

Be clear on the trade-offs you've had to make so that stakeholders get a good understanding of the different considerations you and your team make.

Give stakeholders the big picture so that they can understand where they fit in.

Remember to try and address your different stakeholders' needs. You may have uncovered these in earlier stakeholder interviews or catch-ups.

A good way to do this can be to filter your roadmap content by “epics” or outcomes. You can show the ones that are relevant to the departments or practices that you are speaking with.

3. Leave room for questions and feedback

One of the key goals of a roadmap presentation is to validate your roadmap with stakeholders.

Make sure you give participants an opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback. After all, alignment isn't one-sided! It's an exercise in negotiating different views and opinions.

Actively listen and hear people out. This doesn't necessarily mean you need to act on every single piece of feedback, but make sure stakeholders feel heard and understood.

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Presenting your roadmap is part of your wider ongoing stakeholder management strategy. This means that once you've shared your product roadmap, things don't end there.

1. Make the roadmap artifact accessible

Create ongoing alignment by sharing your roadmap with stakeholders in an accessible place. This means putting it somewhere obvious where people can go and look at it regularly.

This will allow them to continuously check-in and keep up to date on changes. You should continue to communicate updates and changes to your roadmap outside of meetings. For example, you can update regularly using your company's messaging platform (e.g.   Slack ,   Microsoft Teams ) or other communication tools like   Loom .

2. Follow up on feedback

Don't leave stakeholders hanging. Be deliberate about feedback on your roadmap. Make sure to follow up on any feedback shared during the presentation.

Also, consider creating a space where stakeholders can continue to provide feedback on your roadmap on an ongoing basis. Some ideas of how you can do this:

A shared document

A dedicated space in your company's knowledge sharing tool, if you have one (e.g.  Notion ,  Confluence ,  Coda )

A dedicated channel in your company's messaging platform

A dedicated space for feedback in the roadmap artifact itself

Be sure to manage expectations on how this feedback will be reviewed and actioned.

3. Iterate on your product roadmap presentation

Get feedback from stakeholders on if your presentations and updates are working for them. This will help you improve and have better ongoing communication around your roadmap.

You may have been presenting product roadmaps in the same way for years but there is likely still room for improvement! Some areas you can seek feedback on:

Is the meeting cadence working for stakeholders?

Do they understand your product team's priorities and trade-offs?

Do they understand the roadmap's impact on them?

A roadmap presentation is a great way to align with stakeholders and get the buy-in you need to get on with delivering against it.

Roadmap alignment is a continuous, ongoing process. Be thoughtful about how you approach your roadmap presentations. Consider before, during, and after the roadmap presentation to build successful alignment.

We know what a  product roadmap  presentation is. And we know why presenting your roadmap matters. But before we explore how to present a roadmap to stakeholders, let's look at how to build a powerful roadmap presentation with examples. 

In this section, we'll use an example product that we have created a roadmap for — a project management platform for SMBs. 

1. Define the goal and purpose of your presentation

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when creating a presentation for stakeholders? Overlooking the value of  a clear goal and purpose .

You  need  to understand what you hope to achieve by the end of your presentation. Otherwise, you risk delivering a vague speech that leaves your audience confused or feeling like you're wasting their time. 

Your goal and purpose may be to:

Convince stakeholders to support your new product or feature

Update your team on the latest feature to make sure they know why it matters and what their work will involve

Inform stakeholders of a new change in direction with an established feature and gain their approval

Let's say we want to add a video chat function to our  project management  platform. It will give our customers more flexibility to communicate and collaborate without leaving our platform to host video conferences elsewhere. 

We want our presentation to highlight how this new  feature  will improve our platform and persuade stakeholders to green-light it. 

With that goal and purpose in mind, we can structure the roadmap presentation to focus on the feature's benefits and secure the necessary support. 

2. Understand the audience

Knowing who you're talking to and what matters to them is paramount to creating a successful roadmap presentation. If you're speaking to the people responsible for the budget, highlight key financial information. They want to know the costs involved, the potential revenue, and anything else that could affect the company's finances. 

And tailor your presentation style and length to the people listening. For instance, a senior manager will likely be busy on any given day and appreciate a shorter, formal presentation that gets straight to the point. 

3. Highlight the product vision

What's the most important part of your next product roadmap presentation anyway?

Your product vision .  

Let's give it the attention it deserves. Define your  product vision  in a way that excites stakeholders and wins them over. Explain your long-term goal for your product. What do you want it to be in, say, two years? Five years? Ten years?

For example, we want our example project management platform to become the  only  solution our customers need within three years. We want to be synonymous with successful project management and empower SMBs to unlock their full potential with streamlined features and cutting-edge functionality. 

Whatever your product,  keep your vision realistic , or you could lose credibility with stakeholders. 

4. Explain and showcase the roadmap

Define  your roadmap 's value and determine the most effective way to present that information. Our project management platform roadmap is a comprehensive plan that delivers all the details our stakeholders need to understand why they should support it. 

Go through the roadmap's key points clearly and honestly. Put yourself in the stakeholders' shoes and consider what you'd want to hear. Incorporate visuals (see below) to add context, clarity, and inspire stakeholders' imaginations. 

5. Use visual product roadmap aids 

The best, most successful presentations feature visual components to reinforce their points and boost their persuasive power. But only use visuals if they're clear and easy on the eye. Two points to consider:

Use colors to distinguish different areas of your roadmap (like blue for our platform's low-priority features, red for high-priority ones).

Avoid adding too much visual information to your presentation. Focus on presenting essential details and explain the rest to boost engagement.

Never add visuals as an afterthought, though. Always make sure they  add value . 

6. Create a clear CTA

Do you know exactly what you want stakeholders to do after your presentation (e.g. provide funding)? 

You should create a compelling call to action (CTA) that propels them toward that goal. Your CTA should be simple, concise, and inspirational. If your presentation is engaging enough, a well-written CTA should be irresistible.  

Hilary Johnson

Andrea Saez

Vishal Chaudhary

21 Sep 2023

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How to Create a Project Roadmap: Template & Examples

One of the first questions clients often ask is: When will the project be done?  

This question used to cause me instant panic and sweat. I’d be stressed because sales wanted to start in days, team members were dodging my Slacks, and my plate was so full I barely had time to prepare for the initial “meet-and-greet” client hand-off. 

Once it became clear this was going to keep happening, I needed a way to get ahead of the client’s question. After all, they were just as overwhelmed and nervous as I was and had stakeholders of their own to answer to. It only seemed fair to give them something.

That’s where a project roadmap can come in. 

A project roadmap enables you to set broad expectations for your client in this initial squishy phase without overcommitting your team to promises you may (or may not) be able to keep. It can also serve as a useful tool for communication throughout the project.

What is a project roadmap?

A project roadmap is a visual presentation of what will happen over the lifespan of a project at a high level. 

This document shouldn’t outline every granular deliverable or decision point on your project timeline. Instead, a good roadmap provides a bird’s-eye view that shows: 

• When you expect the project to start and end
• Key phases in the middle 
• Who is doing the work and when 
• Major deliverables
• How the different phases overlap or bump into each other
• Any major breaks (such as vacations and holidays)

When creating a project roadmap, be sure to take the unique needs of every project into account. Instead of simply cutting and pasting a template from client to client, consider what’s needed to execute on the project’s specific strategic goals and required outcomes. It’s the why, what, and when for this project.

Note: If you continue to use this document throughout the project, it will need to change as your discovery phases occur and the strategic plan evolves. 

Why is a project roadmap important?

One of the biggest values a project roadmap brings is an easy way to communicate timing. An initial view of date ranges allows your client to set expectations with their stakeholders, releasing the pressure to have answers ready. It also instills immediate confidence that you’re here to lead them.

Here are a few other benefits a roadmap provides, depending on how you plan to use it throughout the project.

Gain alignment and buy-in

This might be the first time your client reviews and approves a document with you. The project roadmap gives you an opportunity to share your understanding and confirm that you and the client are on the same page. 

Of course, if you aren’t, you’ll need to make adjustments. This is a critical step that allows clients and stakeholders to buy into your process.

It’s also important to align on how the document should be used, what it tells you (and what it doesn’t), how it may evolve over the course of the project, and why it would change. 

Set a guide post for goal tracking

Did we mention projects change? It’s going to happen. While the team is deep in the weeds working on task-level details, you need an easy way to confirm you’re not getting off track. 

A project roadmap is a document you can refer back to at any point to ensure you stay on course. It can also act as the source of truth around work prioritization. 

Provide clear visibility and accountability 

As a high-level document, a project roadmap can provide the perfect visibility for additional stakeholders who don’t need (or want) to be in the weeds. These are likely your clients' bosses and their bosses’ bosses. 

Roadmaps provide a clear way to communicate where milestones have been hit and if you’re on track to execute on their strategic goals. That means a project roadmap also enables clients to hold you and your team accountable—and that’s a good thing. Accountability should go both ways.

Assist clients with stakeholder planning

A big challenge many clients initially face is identifying key stakeholders and their project role . They’ve got to figure out who needs to attend what meetings, who has to approve what, when someone should create content or review documents, and more—all while understanding how much time it will take and when it needs to happen.

Your client has likely been stressing about this long before your team came into the picture. While the roadmap won’t answer all their questions, it can be a great first step in helping them start to rough out work and assignments. 

Jump-start the project

Developing a project roadmap allows you, as the project manager, to get your head in the game by forcing you to understand the client, their project objectives, and any outcomes you must accomplish. It’s your job to create a plan that makes all of this possible, so be sure you understand what you’re working towards and why.

A project roadmap can also be a good gut check on current commitments. Did sales accurately estimate hours for each phase? Do you have the right people to fill each role? Is the deadline realistic? If anything is off, now’s the time to realign team and client expectations.

How is a project roadmap different from a project plan?

A project roadmap is essentially a strategic high-level view of the project plan. Think of it as a light, visual version any stakeholder can quickly scan to see the project’s strategic initiatives, major project phases, and how everything connects. 

A project plan , on the other hand, goes into the day-to-day details of tasks, deadlines, resources, responsibilities, and more. It may only be used internally or shared externally with key stakeholders on the client side. 

The project roadmap should be created before your project plan but will likely remain a living and breathing document alongside it. That way, you can continue to keep your larger group of stakeholders informed about project status.

Elements to include in your project roadmap

The details you include in your project roadmap will depend on how you plan to use the document and what you pair it with. You can either pair your roadmap with a project charter or project brief that outlines these additional details or embed your roadmap in a slide deck you’ll present to the client.

In general though, these key elements can help you communicate where you are today and where you’re going.

Strategic vision and goals

Be sure to include the strategic vision and goals as part of your project roadmap—even if it also appears on your project charter or brief. The strategic vision should explain: 

• The project’s desired outcome
• Why the client is doing this work right now
• How it supports their business goals

It’s okay for this information to evolve with the project (especially once you get through research and discovery). The key is simply to start with something everyone agrees to.

Key phases and milestones

Every stakeholder wants a sense of when things will happen and how the project will unfold over time. The tricky part is painting the big picture without fully committing to it. You need to set some stakes in the squishy ground but may need to adjust where you finally put up the tent.

Here are elements you’ll want to include:

• Project kick-off (when you plan to get this project started with the client)
• Key project phases 
• Milestones you plan to meet and deliverables associated with them
• Launch and/or project completion date
• Flex/buffer time in case things go off track
• Dependencies (how phases connect to other phases)

Project resources

The roadmap should list the different team members who will be doing the work. You also might show equipment or materials needed (for example, when you need to purchase user testing software and pay users for the testing).

Threats and risks

Be sure to include anything that could throw a wrench in the project work or timeline. This is your chance to raise both the red and yellow flags so everyone is aware of what might impact your roadmap and how.

How to create a roadmap for project management

Now that you know what a project roadmap is and what it should include, you’re ready to get to work creating one! Follow these 5 key steps to build a solid roadmap for your next project.

1. Gather your materials

Start by pulling together and reviewing all available materials, including the contract, sales notes, and anything the client has provided. Make notes about any questions and concerns you have during this process. 

If you’ve got holes, determine what additional conversations you’ll need to have to complete your roadmap. This may involve internal conversations with sales and/or your project team, or it might require talking to core stakeholders on the client side.

2. Identify your audience and purpose

Before you create anything, it’s important to know who will receive the roadmap and how they’ll likely use this information. Make sure you explain why you decided to use a project roadmap and what you want it to achieve. 

Your goals for the project roadmap—and how long you plan to keep it updated—depend on a number of factors, including: 

• Who the audience is
• Other documents you might partner with it
• Your project budget size
• The complexity of the project
• How savvy your client is (or isn’t)

3. Map the project strategy to your process

 Identify the overall project goal, and use that to create sub-goals. If you don’t have quite enough information to nail the strategy at this stage, that’s okay. The next phases of the project will make it clearer, and you can take it from there. 

Then determine how these goals connect to your project process and phases. You’ll likely want to start with your usual process and adapt it as you figure out what needs to change and what needs to stay the same. 

Create a rough timeline that maps goals to project phases, deliverables, and team members. Many folks like to organize this work by work group (e.g., development team), but that isn’t necessarily how external users see the work. That’s why I recommend grouping by goal or initiative.

4. Make your project roadmap visual

Now that you have a good draft started, it’s time to edit your document down and make it visual. Remember: A project roadmap should be high-level and easy to scan.

You can use a variety of tools to take your roadmap to this next level. Consider these questions when picking a tool that’s right for you:

• Will this tool allow you to easily maintain the roadmap over the life of the project? (e.g., can you quickly drop and drag?)
• Is the tool free, or does it have a monthly fee?
• Are other project managers at your organization using the tool? If not, are they comfortable trying it?
• Is there a quick, client-friendly view or export?
• Is it pretty? (Just because you’re a project manager doesn’t mean you can’t impress others with your documents.)
• Can you customize the roadmap to include the client’s branding (e.g., logo, colors, fonts)?
• Will it allow you to fit everything on one page?
• Can you extend the work you do in the tool to become a full project plan?
• Will it make a gantt chart? (While a project roadmap doesn’t have to be a gantt chart, it’s simply one of the best visual ways to communicate this information.)

Once you’ve selected a tool, add in all the elements of your project roadmap, and make sure to note dependencies, risks, and threats. 

5. Share your roadmap for internal review and polish

The final step is to get internal feedback and approval. While you’ve likely been talking to some or all of your team throughout this process, it’s good to have them do a final review.

For larger projects, schedule an internal review meeting before presenting it to the client. As a project manager, you can get this roadmap started since you have more information and the time to focus on it. But all team members should feel good about the plan. 

Since busy team members often like to give the “looks good" response without really processing the details, prepare specific questions for the meeting to get your team talking.

It’s also time for you to take one final look at it to make sure the project roadmap:

• Is visually interesting and easy to scan
• Doesn’t require you to know insider project information
• Fits onto one page
• Clearly shows the strategy incorporated into the project management process
• Answers what you’re doing, as well as why and when you’re doing it

How to present a project roadmap to stakeholders

Once everyone on your team is on board with the recommendation, it’s time to present it to your client. 

I prefer to export the project roadmap as a one-page PDF and share it ahead of the meeting. That enables core-stakeholders to process it beforehand, setting the stage for a better conversation during the meeting. Of course, if I’m still building a client relationship, I might hold off. 

I also like to stay out of project management software at the first meeting, as people can get anxious about new tools and any expectations around using them.

Here are some topics you’ll want to cover in your project roadmap presentation:

• What the project roadmap is and what it’s not (for example, it’s not a full and final project timeline)
• How the project roadmap will be used throughout the project
• Why and when the roadmap will change
• When the client will receive updates
• Any other project stakeholders you’ll share the document with
• Any concerns stakeholders have with the roadmap

Once your project roadmap is updated and approved, you’re ready to move on to project planning !

Free online project roadmap template

If you’ve never prepared a project roadmap before, there are a lot of things to consider. Feel free to start with our online project roadmap template.

With TeamGantt, everything’s online, so it’s easy to share your roadmap with others and collaborate on progress. If priorities shift, you can rearrange timelines quickly with drag and drop scheduling. 

Create a free project roadmap in TeamGantt.

After you’ve had a chance to try the template out, be sure to adapt it to fit your project roadmapping needs. Then save your custom roadmap as a template in TeamGantt , so it’s always ready to use. 

Need a roadmap for product planning? Use our free product roadmap templates to map out upcoming product features and releases.

Project roadmap examples using TeamGantt

Project roadmaps come in a variety of formats, and you might consider different ones for different situations. In TeamGantt, you can view any project as a gantt chart, task list, calendar, or board. 

Let’s walk through 3 simple examples of how you might use different views in TeamGantt to manage and present your project roadmap.

Example of a project roadmap timeline in Gantt view

A project roadmap timeline works best in a gantt chart and focuses on strategies needed to reach an end-goal over time. 

We used a gantt chart as the default view for our project roadmap template and organized task groups by goals or initiatives. 

Change your gantt chart’s zoom settings from daily to weekly for a cleaner roadmap view, and customize the timeline to ensure it’s easy to understand at a glance. For example, you might color-code projects by initiative or assign strategies to teams using project labels .

Project roadmap examples in Board view

If your team or client prefers an Agile workflow, we’ve got you covered! Simply click the Board tab at the top of the gantt chart to set up custom columns and turn your roadmap into a kanban-style board. All of the strategies outlined on your roadmap timeline will automatically appear as cards on the board.

You can break columns down by goal or initiative or structure it based on work group, priority, or any other category you choose. The project roadmap example below organizes work into phases, and each card has a label that shows the quarter(s) work is slated for:

Some people use a now-next-later column structure to organize cards by priority, but you may want your roadmap to be a little more specific. Here’s an example of how you might use a project board to sort cards by quarter instead. In this sample roadmap, we’ve used labels to indicate which team(s) will be responsible for the work.

Make your project roadmap work for you

No matter which format you choose, it’s important to understand your “why” behind any project roadmap you create. That way, you can ensure it works to achieve your goals.

TeamGantt gives you the flexibility you need to create a project roadmap that adapts to your clients’ needs. Best of all, it comes with a clean and simple interface anyone can understand.

Sign up for a free TeamGantt account, and save time with our online project roadmap template!

About the author: Lynn Winter

Lynn is a freelance Digital Strategist who combines 20+ years of experience in content strategy, user experience, and project management to bring a holistic approach to her work. She has spoken at numerous local and national conferences and hosts an annual conference for Digital Project Managers called Manage Digital ( http://managedigital.io/ ). You can connect with her at lynnwintermn.com .

Try TeamGantt for free today!

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9 tips to create compelling product roadmap presentations

A crystal-clear roadmap is the best strategic communication tool for a product manager. When properly presented and shared across an organization, a product roadmap sheds light on what’s happening today, tomorrow, and in the future—and motivates teams to achieve more.

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A great product roadmap presentation helps you build trust with your team and stakeholders —letting them all see how you’re creating real value for the company. How you present a roadmap to your internal team can also inform how you should present it to your customers and get them on board with what’s to come.

This chapter dives into the best tips for roadmap presentations to keep every stakeholder invested and engaged before, during, and after you’re done presenting.

Boost your product roadmap presentation with product experience insights

Heatmaps, Recordings, Surveys, and Feedback tools help you build your product roadmap presentation on a solid, user-centric foundation.

Why your product roadmap presentation matters

When it comes to keeping product strategy, business objectives, and execution aligned, the product roadmap is your key point of reference. Your work as a product manager (PM) involves working with internal teams and stakeholders to build a crystal-clear roadmap that clearly communicates deliverables, and the expectations for where the product is going and why .

Next, you need to get everyone else involved with the product on board and on the same page. The first step to evangelizing your product roadmaps across your organization is to get them out there for all to see with a product roadmap presentation.

Presenting your roadmap to key stakeholders is a great opportunity to tell a compelling story about where your product is going. 

A well-thought-out roadmap presentation will help you:

Align and validate your team’s roadmap

Reduce the risk of eleventh-hour surprises stopping you in your tracks

Smoothly deliver against your product strategy

Avoid stakeholder confusion or dissatisfaction on where the product is going

Make sure your goals stay customer-centric and align with both your users’ needs and wants, as well as your business objectives

How the product roadmap presentation helps you achieve your goals

Your goal with the product roadmap presentation is to gain alignment around the set of priorities you’ve arrived at. That includes:

5 components of a great product roadmap presentation

Every product roadmap presentation is different. In fact, to address every stakeholder’s needs, you may need to first create and present a general strategic product roadmap template, and then move on to discuss lower-level field roadmaps. 

However, there are some components that most product roadmap presentations have in common:

An introduction/agenda: this tells your audience what to expect, what the presentation is about, and how long it’ll last

Your purpose and product vision : the reasoning behind the new product (or new iterations) to give your audience some context and help them see the rationale behind your product direction

The product’s target audience: who are you trying to target with your new product/features? It could be your existing audience, or you might want to reach a new audience in a different market.

Your product roadmap: a top-level view of what you’ve outlined in your product roadmap. For example, you can showcase the anticipated timeline, but don't go into detail about each deliverable along the way.

Feedback and questions: at the end of the presentation, leave space for your audience to ask questions and provide feedback

💡 Pro tip : keep your presentation user-focused with a data-informed strategy and roadmap.

Use Hotjar to gather a rich mix of quantitative and qualitative product experience data for a user-centric approach. 

By providing a steady inflow of user data, Hotjar’s tools can help you ensure your product strategy and roadmap are always relevant.

A Hotjar heatmap in action

9 tips to ace your product roadmap presentation

Before you go ahead with your product roadmap presentation, think about how you communicate your roadmap at these stages:

Before the presentation

When you’re working on your product roadmap presentation, your main goal is to set it up for the best results . To do that, get to know your stakeholders’ needs and motivations, and try to anticipate questions and feedback that might come up in the presentation.

1. Know your audience

As you build your product roadmap presentation, focus on sharing the most relevant information with your audience. 

For example, the C-Suite and the Sales team care about different aspects of the product strategy, while customers and engineers are likely invested in different aspects of the product's direction. Every one of these groups has a varying degree of understanding around the inner workings of the product —and different ways of relating to you as the PM.

To tailor your presentation to the interests of the audience involved, you need to get to know them: their motivations, their deadlines, their pressures, what’s keeping them up at night. This will help you empathize with your stakeholders and create trust.

💡 Pro tip: if you don’t know your stakeholders, set up interviews so you can begin to understand them and their interests. Stakeholder interviews can be informal, simple conversations to get to know their motivations and challenges. They’ll also provide you with some less-obvious opportunities to influence your project’s chances of success.

Once you know your audience, you can tailor your product roadmap presentation to address what they care about and communicate your roadmap for successful buy-in . For example:

Engineering: they want to understand the value of their effort to the business, to customers, and towards improving the product. Keep it short-term and focus on developer-oriented themes—like scalability, usability, quality, performance, infrastructure, and product features.

Executives : these stakeholders care about the company's vision and goals, and how the plan depicted by the roadmap will help the company achieve them. Make sure your roadmap ties each initiative to customer value and business goals. Explain what features you’re adding, and more importantly, how the initiatives will help the product capture the market.

Customer-facing teams : these include Sales and Customer Success and Support teams that mainly care about what they can promise customers, when it will be ready, how it affects pricing, building trust and loyalty, and ways to reduce churn. Give them a transparent timeline they can communicate to customers and users, and show how the roadmap will introduce ways to reduce churn and improve conversion.

2. Channel your inner PANDA 

Building an effective and engaging presentation is all about product roadmap prioritization in the wild. As a PM, that can mean dealing with some pretty dangerous animals. 

From HiPPOs (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) to ZEBRAs (Zero Evidence But Really Arrogant) to RHINOs (Really Here In Name Only), these types of stakeholders can hold up the product development process or force you to focus resources on the wrong priorities.

PANDAs (Prioritizes Amazingly and Needs Data Always) make the best product managers because they prioritize strategically and take a data-informed approach. 

When it comes to developing a stellar product roadmap presentation, channeling your inner PANDA helps you:

Communicate convincing product narratives

Share user and business data that keeps team members aligned

Manage your backlog effectively

Highlight clear, measurable metrics that let you know you’re on the right track 

Keep the product team aligned on shared priorities and initiatives

Build trust with stakeholders who can see that you’re creating real value for the company

Product managers who Prioritize Amazingly and Need Data Always can confidently show that their product decisions will benefit their team, their organization, and most importantly, their users. This is the basis for cross-functional communication and buy-in from execs and other stakeholders.

💡 Pro tip : sharpen your user data to make better decisions for your product roadmap.

The best product managers use research for product prioritization , and Hotjar gives you the user data you need to prioritize brilliantly. 

Ask users direct questions and gather information on what’s important to them by using Hotjar’s non-invasive survey tools—like Feedback widgets.

Use Heatmaps and Session Recordings to spot issues and determine which bug fixes and product optimizations should be top of your list.  

When you’re guided by how your users experience your product and what their needs are, you can stop your priorities from being hijacked by loud-mouthed HiPPOs, arrogant ZEBRAs, or unfocused WOLF types.

A session recording captured using Hotjar

3. Structure the roadmap in themes, not features

Theme-based roadmaps are one of the best ways to give your product roadmap a memorable and meaningful narrative . As they highlight the big picture, themes show the broader objectives at play and make it easier for you to sell your product strategy.

High-level themes are great for structuring the roadmap and setting up your audience for the context you’re presenting in. To anticipate needs and questions during the presentation, make sure you can provide details into what’s behind each high-level item. 

For example, if you've called a theme 'essential services', break it down into key initiatives and epics that will be required to deliver the theme.

During the presentation

To get everyone on board during product roadmap presentations, your goal is to communicate clearly with your stakeholders and ensure everyone is on the same page.

4. Focus on the why 

Whether it’s a traditional feature roadmap or a problem-focused set of objectives and key results (OKRs), why you want to do these things matters. Is it to explore a new business opportunity? To increase satisfaction among a key segment of users? Something else?

If you expect your team to own building solutions—as well as defining and measuring their success—they need to understand why these initiatives matter to your users and the business as a whole. 

As you present, highlight the context for why you are including something on a roadmap, and remember to tailor your message depending on the audience. Technical teams need to see evidence for why you see demand for a feature. Executives want to see a strong connection between the development initiatives and the priorities of the business.

Remember to address different stakeholders' needs, which you may have uncovered in earlier stakeholder interviews or catch-ups. Be clear on the trade-offs you’ve had to make so stakeholders understand the different considerations you and your team have made.

💡 Pro tip : the data speaks for itself, but you can also tell a powerful story from the perspective of your users. 

Include user insights to prove the value of your ideas, and talk about some alternatives that you've excluded—and why.

Use Hotjar's product experience tools to Observe and Ask for user feedback that helps your audience understand the ‘why’ as much as the ‘what’.

The Hotjar Feedback widget

5. Communicate a convincing product narrative

Great product storytelling can get powerful exec HiPPOs on board, motivate disconnected RHINOs, and convince arrogant ZEBRAs and distractible WOLF (Working On Latest Fire) personas to get behind your product plans. 

As you tell the story of how your roadmap came together, use it as a tool to keep your audience engaged and rally their support around the plan . Include details like customer requests that inspired a new feature, features and functionalities that help push you closer to the product’s vision, or any particularly difficult prioritization decisions you can share.

Use simple and clear language and avoid industry jargon, especially if you're trying to align a wide variety of stakeholders. This will help communicate your product roadmap.

6. Engage your audience with visual aids

People need to see how all the components of your product strategy fit together, so invest time in making sure your product roadmap presentation template is well-designed .

Whether it’s dedicated product roadmapping or project management tools, PowerPoint presentations, infographics, Gantt charts, or Excel spreadsheets, every type of product roadmap presentation template uses graphic elements to help stakeholders visualize your overall product strategy, and help you chart the development and release of specific iterations .

A few key points to keep in mind: 

Vary your versions : present different versions of your roadmap for different audiences. A good way to do this can be to filter your roadmap content by epics or outcomes, and only show the ones relevant to the departments or teams you're presenting to.

Colormap : use color to distinguish between different themes, objectives, or categories on your roadmap. Don’t forget to include a legend outlining what each color signifies.

Keep it relevant : don’t overwhelm your audience with too many details. Your visual product roadmap should contain only the most relevant insights and graphics. When in doubt, take it out.

After the presentation

It’s time to tie up any loose ends and check in with your audience. As you do so, continue to request feedback and iterate on your roadmap presentation.

7. Tie in metrics

If you’re having a difficult time rallying the audience around your roadmap, remember that metrics are a great arbitrator . They are a powerful tool for selling your product strategy and getting buy-in across your organization.

Metrics related to the success of your product help you make objective decisions and not rely on intuition alone. You likely used these product metrics to make your roadmap decisions in the first place, so put them back to work for you when presenting your product strategy.

Your visual roadmap should present how initiatives influence key business metrics or a 'north star metric'. They’re an important part of the narrative around your product roadmap, so put these numbers front and center in your presentation. 

8. Leave room for questions and feedback

Make sure you give participants the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback on your product roadmap presentation. This will help you improve and have better ongoing communication around your roadmap.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to act on every single piece of feedback. Instead, actively listen and hear people out and make sure stakeholders feel heard and understood.

Some areas you can seek feedback on are:

Is the meeting cadence working for stakeholders?

Do they understand your product team’s priorities and trade-offs?

Do they understand the roadmap’s impact on them?

Then, follow up on any feedback shared during the presentation. After all, alignment isn’t one-sided—it’s an exercise in negotiating different views and opinions.

9. Keep the product roadmap updated and accessible

Once you’ve done a good job selling your product strategy, don’t hide it away. Make sure you follow up your roadmap presentation with thorough meeting notes and the updated roadmap. 

By now it’s clear that roadmaps can’t just be static documents—like an Excel spreadsheet or a PowerPoint template. This also means th e roadmapping lifecycle doesn’t simply end with a presentation . You need to follow up on KPIs and progress, as well as keep your stakeholders and customers informed.

Continue to communicate updates and changes to your roadmap outside of meetings. Create a concrete, editable, and accessible space where stakeholders can continuously check-in, provide feedback, and keep up-to-date on changes. 

Some ideas of how to do this include:

A product roadmapping tool

A shared document

A dedicated space in your company’s knowledge sharing tool

A dedicated channel in your company’s messaging platform

A dedicated space for feedback in the roadmap artifact itself

Next steps for product roadmap presentations

Roadmap alignment is a continuous, ongoing process. And the way you approach your roadmap presentations can be decisive in how your product moves forward toward success. 

As you gear up to present your product strategy and the specific iterations it involves, consider what you do before, during, and after the roadmap presentation to build alignment.  

Understanding why certain product initiatives matter to your users and the business will allow your team, stakeholders, and customers to rally behind them much more than just being told they need to happen.

FAQs about product roadmap presentations

What should you include in a product roadmap presentation.

An effective, coherent roadmap presentation includes:

The context and ‘why’ behind each initiative 

Substance and concrete outcomes at each stage of the roadmap

A clear business impact of completing the initiative

Details about the product’s target audience to demonstrate how well you know the market, the users, the product, and the business goals

When should you deliver a product roadmap presentation?

There are a few situations where you might need to deliver a roadmap presentation. Here are a few of the most common: 

To get approval from business leaders for new products, features, or a change in product strategy

To alleviate conflicting messages from different stakeholders

To create a release plan that can be shared with customers

To get your team on the same page with and advocate for the product opportunities that will help your company reach its goals

How long should a product roadmap presentation be?

The ideal duration of a product roadmap presentation depends on how many products and features you need to discuss. We recommend reserving around 1–2 hours, including time for brainstorming and feedback at the end.

Product roadmap templates

Previous chapter

Roadmapping for PMs

Next chapter

• Integrations
• Learning Center
• The Ultimate Guide to Product Roadmaps
• Table of Contents

What is a product roadmap?

Why is a product roadmap important, who is responsible for the product roadmap.

• Building Product Roadmaps

How Your Roadmap Will Evolve as Your Product Matures

How do you plan what goes on a product roadmap, how to plan security and technical debt on your roadmap, how do you prioritize features for the product roadmap.

• More Roadmap Tips

How to Add Multiple Products to Your Roadmap

What is a roadmap in agile, what are the different types of product roadmaps, why is product roadmap software important.

• Presenting and Using Your Roadmap

How to Present Your Roadmap in 5 Steps

What is roadmap execution.

• Download Book

A product roadmap is a high-level visual summary that maps out the vision and direction of your product offering over time. A product roadmap communicates the why and what behind what you’re building. A roadmap is a guiding strategic document as well as a plan for executing the product strategy.

For examples and inspiration on building your first roadmap, browse our library of product roadmap templates .

The product roadmap has several ultimate goals:

• Describe the vision and strategy
• Provide a guiding document for executing the strategy
• Get internal stakeholders in alignment
• Facilitate discussion of options and scenario planning
• Help communicate with external stakeholders, including customers

For more on the basics of a product roadmap, check on this short video.

Ideally, your product roadmap should convey the strategic direction for your product. And it should also tie back to the strategy for the company. Within that framework, of course, is the general order of what you’ll be building.

Clearly articulating the product vision and strategy can make it easier to secure executive buy-in. It also ensures that everyone is working toward a common goal.

Product roadmaps encapsulate how the product strategy becomes a reality. They take many competing priorities and boil them down to what’s most important, leaving shiny objects by the wayside in favor of work that moves the needles stakeholders really care about.

They’re also a source of inspiration, motivation, and shared ownership of the product and its successes. All the work individual contributors do often only make sense within the context of the product roadmap and knowing that plan and what the organization hopes it will bring can get naysayers onboard.

Product roadmaps are one of the few things almost everyone in the organization will be exposed to, as sales pitches, marketing plans, and financials are usually held closer to the vest. For many workers, it’s their only glimpse of where the product and organization are heading and why certain decisions were made. They provide a shared, common understanding of the vision, goals, and objectives for everyone in the company.

Product roadmaps also help organizations avoid chaos from reigning, pet projects from sliding into the implementation queue, and wasting resources on less important tasks. They are the beacon, the focal point, and the guideposts for everyone bringing the product to market.

Product roadmap creation should be a group effort, but the product management team should ultimately be responsible for their creation and maintenance. This combination of collaboration and discrete ownership gets stakeholders onboard while maintaining informational integrity and avoiding a free-for-all atmosphere.

Product management should begin with a clear understanding of both the product’s and the overall organization’s strategic objectives, which comes from the executive team. Then, with the desired outcomes in mind, product management can create the key themes for this portion of the product’s lifecycle.

Roadmaps support outcome-driven planning

Next, it’s time to dive into the backlog and see which items match up with those larger themes before engaging in a prioritization exercise with various internal (and potentially external) stakeholders to see what will have the biggest impact or greatest ROI. Once everything is sorted and ranked, the product team can then start slotting things in, checking in frequently with the implementation team to ensure the prioritized goals and themes of the roadmap are feasible and worth the effort.

As products evolve, they inevitably become more complex. They’re expected to do more, to serve additional cohorts, to integrate with other products and services.

Product roadmaps also go through an evolution of their own. A roadmap for a freshly-minted MVP differs significantly from a mature product on many fronts:

• Horizon: Startups have a much harder time predicting future requirements and opportunities for the products. Therefore their roadmaps probably won’t go too far in the future (or if they do it’s with some very large asterisks). Established products can make firmer longer-term plans. They have a better understanding of their customers and the market.
• Frequency: When you’re young and scrappy, you need to “always be shipping.” More mature products can space out their releases with less urgency.
• Dependencies: Startups can move quickly and break stuff. Mature products have a legacy to worry about, third-party integrations to maintain, and regression issues to contend with.
• Goals: A startup’s goals are very different from an enterprise product. The first is just trying to prove its viability, gain some traction, and grow. The latter will have more nuanced strategic objectives and more diverse targets.

A great roadmap has a tough bouncer working the door. To maintain credibility with stakeholders, the riff-raff needs to be kept at bay while only items deserving of a slot can make the cut. So keep the roadmap clear of any undeserving inclusions by applying a few filters : 

• Does it have actual value to users? If not, then save that space for something that does.
• Is there evidence of that value? Gut feelings and hunches are for amateurs. Well-documented facts should support this claim, and metrics should be driving feature decisions.
• Is there an owner? Every request needs a champion who understands the nuances and will continue to fight for it.

Every roadmap should include things that get the audience excited, such as new functionality and integrations. But there must always be a place for the less exciting need-to-do items as well.

Ignoring key topics such as scalability, cybersecurity , and technical debt is pennywise and pounds foolish. The product will eventually have to address those topics. If time isn’t allocated in the roadmap upfront for these things, it will feel more like an unexpected delay, slip, or poor planning than simply acknowledging upfront that you’ve got to eat your vegetables.

Roadmaps are the result of lengthy analysis, consideration, and deliberations. Once you set strategies and goals, it comes down to prioritizing features and enhancements based on a variety of criteria.  

There are multitudes of methods for prioritizing potential roadmap items. There are dozens of frameworks to choose from, from using OKRs , to MoSCow,  to the RICE Scoring Model . Regardless of which approach is ultimately selected, proper prioritization requires product teams to do their homework. Assess each item under consideration for value, level of effort, and opportunity costs.

Teams must also weigh the benefits of short-term wins versus making progress toward long-term goals . Any good roadmap will include a combination of both items. This ensures incremental gains are being seen regularly without pushing out the hard work required to advance the overall product strategy.

Roadmapping levels up its degree of difficulty when it involves multiple products. Now, instead of trying to convey a vision and plan for a single product, the roadmap must do so for lots of them.  

Not only is this a challenge from a pure real estate on-the-page perspective, but getting all the messages aligned isn’t always easy. There are often multiple product managers or teams involved. Each with its own tastes, vernacular, and terminology. Not to mention that the products themselves might be in entirely different stages.  

A note on roadmap alignment

Consistency is the key to pulling this off . Alignment on the roadmap style, legend, color coding, time horizon, and level of granularity are mandatory. And don’t forget about version control issues!

To make this easier, ProductPlan offers the Portfolio View feature . Each team manages its own product’s roadmap, but they’ll automatically roll up into a Portfolio View providing a single, consistent view of every product in the portfolio. Organizations can even include non-product roadmaps such as marketing, IT, and operations in the Portfolio View.

Before the prevalence of agile development methods, a product roadmap underwent much less fluctuation during the product’s lifetime. Depending on the organization, a roadmap’s time frame might be locked in for 18 months or longer.  

In the age of agile development, however, a roadmap has become much more of a living document. The roadmaps have far shorter timeframes and need more frequent adjustments to accommodate changing priorities and market opportunities. And Agile roadmaps may look a little different from more traditional single or multi-product ones.  

Keeping roadmaps current is one of the biggest secrets to success . An outdated roadmap only leads to confusion and false expectations. This confusion is why it’s essential to use a tool that makes it simple and easy to make frequent updates as soon as possible.

Before setting out to build a roadmap, its audience must be identified — this way, you can tailor the content, focus, and presentation to their needs.  

In an executive-facing roadmap, for example, the product vision is emphasized, along with its alignment with business goals. With a roadmap for engineers, however, there’s a stronger focus on specific features.

Here are four examples of roadmap constituencies, and the primary function the roadmap serves for them.

(Note: for these examples, we’ll assume your product is software, but the fundamentals of product roadmaps could apply equally if the product were physical or any other category of good or service.)

Internal roadmap for executives

For this audience, aim to secure buy-in for the product vision and to maintain support and enthusiasm throughout its development cycle.

These roadmaps should focus, therefore, on high-level strategic concepts — such as driving growth, new market penetration, customer satisfaction, or market position.  

Although similar to executives, investors and board members also require their flavor of roadmap. The emphasis must be on how the planned work will increase the value of the product (and company). It should illustrate how enhancements move vital metrics that matter most to that cohort.

Internal roadmap for engineers

These roadmaps often focus on features, releases, sprints, and milestones. They’re typically more granular in scope and shorter in duration than executive-facing roadmaps. For those using agile development methods, these roadmaps are often at the epic or feature level. However, product goals and themes should still be a component of these roadmaps.

Engineering roadmaps should include as much granularity as possible. Even though developers will focus less on product vision and revenue potential, it’s a smart practice to include relevant milestones and requirements other departments are facing. This way, developers understand specific deadlines and requirements.

Internal roadmap for sales

Sales teams will want to know how the product will help them sell more, so the focus here should be on a combination of features and customer benefits. Focus on how the product will benefit reps directly, as well as the user benefits they can communicate to their customers and prospects. Whenever possible, group similar features/items into themes that sales reps can discuss with prospects.

Use caution when sharing internal roadmaps with Sales. It is not uncommon for sales reps to share internal roadmaps with customers, as a way of closing a deal, generating interest, and keeping leads warm. Avoid having sales teams committing a product to a specific release date, by excluding release or launch dates in these roadmaps.

External roadmap for customers and prospects  

When designing a product roadmap for customers and prospects, the focus should be entirely on the product’s benefits to them. Because these are external documents, customer roadmaps should be visual, attractive, and easy to understand.  

It’s a best practice not to include the release or launch dates in external-facing roadmaps. Just as a sales rep sharing an internal roadmap with prospects can commit the team prematurely to a release date, external roadmaps run the same risk of over-commitment. Unless there’s certainty about the product’s availability date, it’s a good habit to avoid including dates in an external-facing roadmap.

Product roadmaps aren’t new, but they were created using inferior solutions that were created with other tasks in mind for much of their existence. Whether it’s project management tools, Gantt charts, or spreadsheets, this software might have produced product roadmaps with lots of data. Still, legibility was often an issue, and there were few visual cues to the casual reviewer as to what was necessary.

The challenge with some presentation tools

But product managers are no longer limited to these off-label uses of standard productivity software. Instead, solutions are created explicitly for building product roadmaps that boast features and capabilities that don’t exist elsewhere.

These tools unlock the ability to create visual, theme-based roadmaps that elevate the discussion above specific features and shift the focus to strategic goals. In addition, they eliminate out-of-date versions from circulating and being referenced by using a cloud-based viewer.

Product roadmapping software can also easily enable custom versions of the roadmap to be generated based on the particular audience it’s being presented to. They can also sync with other vital parts of the product stack to keep things up-to-the-minute accurate and alert stakeholders when changes are made.

Creating and maintaining roadmaps takes a lot of effort and attention to detail. But all that hard work might go for naught if the final product presentation doesn’t go well. So to make sure a roadmap is well received, product managers must lay the groundwork for success. 

1. Who should you share your roadmap with?

Product roadmaps can be shared with a wide variety of stakeholders, provided that the version being socialized is appropriate for the audience in question. That’s one reason why using tags and filters with a cloud-based, purpose-built product roadmapping tool can be so valuable.

Instead of circulating the same version of the product roadmap with everyone, product managers can quickly craft product roadmaps appropriate for the occasion. Of course, the master version has all the details, but what is specifically shown to each group is tailored just for them.

In general, a few key sets of stakeholders need to get their hands on product roadmaps. Starting at the top, the executive team will certainly need to review and approve the product roadmap at the outset of any major initiatives and receive regular status updates on how things are progressing. The key for them is understanding the major themes, expected outcomes, and how it aligns with the overall product strategy and helps the company improve its KPIs .

Roadmaps for the internal team

But other internal groups should see the product roadmap as well. For example, the implementation team (UX, engineering, QA, operations) should all be privy to the most detailed versions of the product roadmap as they’re tasked with key pieces of its execution. Sales and marketing are also critical stakeholders to share the product roadmap with to plan out their go-to-market activities for key releases and major new functionality.

Beyond the organization itself, the product roadmap has additional roles to fill. Customers and prospects may benefit from seeing a glimpse of what’s on the horizon and from seeing where their specific requests fall (or don’t fall) in the future. 

Press and analysts are another potential audiences for an extremely edited version of the product roadmap to get them excited about where the product is headed. Additionally, key strategic partners from technology providers to distributors and sales agents may also need access to align their activities with the plans for the product.

2. Know your audience.

Beyond tailoring the roadmap to the titles and roles of the crowd, product teams should understand their motivations, concerns, and hot-button issues. If the presenter doesn’t proactively address them (either in the roadmap or in the commentary offered during the presentation), they’re likely to be brought up and put the presenter on the defensive. So it’s best to get out ahead of those things as it speaks to preparation and keeps things from turning negative. 

Even better is previewing the roadmap with crucial decision-makers ahead of time. Getting them onboard and addressing their potential quibbles before the formal presentation can smooth the path for approval and buy-in. 

3. Focus on the narrative.

Storytelling is an essential part of effective product management . There’s no opportunity more apt for tapping into your inner Mark Twain than during a roadmap presentation.

Providing context, anecdotes, sources of inspiration puts the audience at ease. It also demonstrates how much thought and consideration were invested in the process.

And if there’s a compelling narrative for how each new theme, feature, and epic unlocks new potential for users, all the better.

4. Stay high level.

If a roadmap presentation spends most of its time discussing individual features, things have already gone off the rails. The strategy, goals, and themes are the key messages to convey. Specific features are implementation details that shouldn’t matter to stakeholders as long as a result is achieving objectives. 

5. Add some metrics to the message.

Everything in our data-driven world must be measurable, and roadmaps aren’t spared. The items on a roadmap should be improving the metrics the organization values and moving KPIs in a positive direction. When there’s a meaningful, measurable outcome for a particular initiative, it’s far easier to gain support than discussing vague and abstract endpoints.

A product roadmap is a vision, a strategy, and a plan. What it is not is a finished product. To get to that state of things, the product roadmap must be successfully executed.

That process has several key steps. The first is socialization to ensure the product roadmap and its objectives are clearly understood by the teams tasked with making it all happen. This includes UI/UX, engineering, architecture/IT, testing, and operations, as each plays a role in turning great ideas into actual products.

But making sure everyone is on the same page and then “throwing it over the wall” doesn’t guarantee the finished product will reflect those good intentions. So product management must remain involved throughout the design, development, testing, and deployment phases of the process.

Part of this is just being available when people have questions or need clarification or want to settle a quick judgment call. But it also requires proactive engagement from the product team, with frequent check-ins and conversations to ensure the plans are being faithfully executed and introducing new learnings and information as it becomes available.

Roadmaps during testing and deployment

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10 ways to succeed with a product roadmap presentation

How to influence and inspire teams with your product roadmap presentation. 

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The product roadmap presentation can be nail biting for both developers and product managers; one party has worked hard to come up with a vision while the other party waits to see the unknown that is going to affect their work.

I felt this tension when I worked as a developer and I often found myself unsatisfied with the roadmaps product management put together. I didn't fully buy into the decisions, and I'd often walk out of a planning meeting with the sentiment of "Well, this doesn't make sense to me, but if they think so...", or even worse, a "We'll have to figure out things ourselves and make it look like what we do fits this roadmap.

You might argue the problem was likely me suffering from NIH (Not Invented Here syndrome) and you might be right. As a developer, I had a very strong opinion on what was the right thing to do. But now as a product manager, I see what caused this disconnect, and what general knowledge product managers can draw from this disconnect to hit a home run with a roadmap presentation. After all, if the technical team agrees with and understands the big picture, day-to-day design and implementation decisions will be made with the right context, and you’ll get the product you envisioned.

The following are my top ten ways to win over teams with a product roadmap presentation. 

1. Choose substance over buzzwords

While buzzwords like “big data analytics”, "machine learning," or “an Internet of Things initiative (IoT)” might resonate with business stakeholders as high-level anchor points, they aren't helpful and actionable items for technical teams. Engineering needs to know exactly what it is they're building, how it relates to current products, how it should be delivered, and who will use it in the end, and for what purpose.

Setting high-level themes is great for structuring the roadmap and context, but make sure you don’t stop there and have good answers for what is behind each high-level item. For example, if you've called a theme "intelligent services," make sure to break this down into  key initiatives and epics  that are needed in order to deliver this theme.

2. Set the right context

Technical teams need context for why you are building something on a roadmap. No technical team is going to say, "Just tell me what you want and I’ll build it." On the contrary, engineers need to see evidence for why you see demand for a feature. Let data speak, but also tell a powerful story from the perspective of your users. Use personas, and talk about some alternatives that you've excluded, and why. To help the entire team understand the roadmap the "why" matters as much as the "what."

3. Consider commitments carefully

If a feature doesn't seem well thought through or realistic, yet it is still on the roadmap, this should scream red flag. You don't want the technical team getting the impression that they have to build stuff just because you promised it to someone. This could be a commitment to a customer or because because "management wants it." So be wise about making commitments. Even if you have a forcing function behind yourself that requires a particular change, make sure you understand and pass on the rationale to the team, and stand behind it yourself.

4. Make realistic plans

A vision is good, but it’s even better if everyone feels confident that it can be achieved. The plan doesn't need to be precise, but if the first thing your development manager sees when looking at a roadmap is a huge bottleneck – for example, if the roadmap looks design heavy and frontend centered, but the team only has one designer and has struggled with frontend topics in the last few months – then you'll have he or she struggling with the roadmap throughout the rest of your presentation.

Make sure you do a reality check upfront with the team and play with what-if scenarios. You need to have answers, a clear plan of action, and concise consideration about the "how it can be done" before asking for everyone's commitment. 

5. Think big, start small

You need to be aware of where a product and team skills are today versus where you want them to be. It's great to advance into new fields, which might require new skills in the team or moving away from existing technology, but don’t just write down dreams of where you’d like to be in a year. Instead, think about how to get there realistically. Acquiring talent takes time, adopting new technologies takes time, and abandoning existing products requires clear commitments and a transition plan.

6. Build a business case

Business case? Yes. Technical teams care about businesses cases. Maybe not to the same extent as senior management, but an entire development team cares about why something is relevant to the business, if it produces real results, and how this will be measured. Tap into the business-street-smarts of your technical team. Everyone has a vested interest in the business succeeding as a whole, and it can be great source of feedback or additional ideas.

Also, full clarity on the business impact and seeing it happen can be a great motivator; driving results is satisfying beyond just having built and shipped a feature.

7. Balance mundane with motivating

Engineers want to build unique, innovative products that they can take pride in. If it's just the same old story others have told before, it can be demotivating. Make sure you do research to confirm that your story is as innovative as you think. Aside from demotivated developers, the business impact of the lack of innovation is even worse.

With this said, even roadmaps will always be a balancing act between exciting new features, and technically not too interesting must-haves that just have to be done. Try to make sure that even the mundane is motivating on your roadmap. 

8. Think beyond MVP and v1

Creating a minimum viable product, and then a version 1 is one thing, but there’s also everything that happens post-launch: operations, maintenance, feature requests from users, continuous improvements, and new versions of other products and/or platforms that are integrated. A quick think on what the challenges and obstacles might be after a launch will bring these to light without much effort, and engineers will be thankful that you didn't ignore these realities. Rough estimates suggest that the initial effort of building a new feature is often only a third to one half of the total effort spent on it over its entire lifetime. In other words: the aftermath is more costly then the initial build, and some "quick small things" become very costly in the long run.

9. Roll with the punches

Estimates are a good thing. They give you guidance, and are created to the best of a product manager's knowledge at each given point in time. However, many assumptions made for estimates turn out very wrong once you go into implementation or refine a design. Make sure you prepare and present the roadmap so that it’s flexible to changes.

10. Be open and honest

A roadmap is there to provide guidance. It’s not a detailed plan for execution and everyone on a software team knows that. There's no need to sell it as something different than it is. So if you don’t have all the details on a topic yet, be open about it. Share what you have, what the intention is, what the open questions are and highest risks that still need to be addressed. Point out areas that require experimentation and more research to nail down the "what." Just remember to account for this experimentation time in planning.

The bottom line?

Your team deserves a roadmap that clearly paints the big picture, but doesn't neglect realities. Your team also deserves a roadmap that is motivating, exciting, and has enough details so the entire software team knows what to do in the next 1-2 sprints with a feeling of confidence that they'll achieve great results with material impact for the business.

Do you need additional help? Check out the  roadmaps features in Jira Software and a product roadmap template in Jira . Or try Jira Product Discovery , made for PMs, for free.

Martin currently leads Atlassian’s ecosystem team. Having successfully founded a startup in the Atlassian Marketplace before, he’s incredibly passionate about making sure our customers get access to a great choice of high quality apps in our Marketplace, as well as provide a great experience for all developers building on our platform. Outside the office, you’ll likely meet him mountain biking, kayaking, or chasing down the best coffee in town.

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The complete guide to building effective roadmaps (with examples and templates)

Remember the time you tried to assemble that IKEA shelf without the manual? Neither do we. That’s because we know the value of a good guide. And in the world of product management, that guide is our beloved product roadmap . 

A product roadmap is like your North Star in the vast universe of product development. It’s a visual representation of your product’s direction, priorities, and progress over time.

We’re going to focus on product roadmaps in this article. But, we’ll discuss and show examples of other roadmap types, too.

We’ll also explain how to build and use a roadmap. These principles apply to many types of roadmaps, not just the product ones. We’ll also explore product roadmap software that makes managing roadmaps a breeze.

Let’s dive deep into the world of roadmaps and break it all down.

Why do you need a roadmap?

Here are a few reasons to start building a product roadmap.

• Strategic alignment

It ensures everyone’s paddling in the same direction.

• Sales teams won’t promise some features that PMs aren’t even aware of
• Marketing won’t build campaigns for features that aren’t in the works
• Design won’t create wireframes for low-priority features

You get the idea.

• Stakeholder communication

A roadmap is like a translator between you and your key stakeholders. There will always be people who want certain features shipped yesterday. How can you effectively communicate your current priorities? With a product roadmap, of course!

•  Resource planning

Knowing what you’re building will help determine which resources you need. You’ll also know when you need them, in what quantities, and how crucial they are. Planning simplifies everything! If you plan properly, you won’t end up with too many or too few resources.

Now that we know why roadmaps are so crucial, let’s talk about who’s involved.

Who should create the roadmap?

Navigating the vast seas of product development requires a clear map and a skilled crew. For example:

Product managers (PMs)

That’s us! The captains of the ship. As a product manager or a product owner, you’re at the heart of the product’s journey. You understand the product vision, the users, and the market. Your role is to ensure that the product’s direction aligns with the business goals and user needs. You’re setting the course, deciding which ports (features) to visit, and ensuring the crew (development team) knows the route.

Project managers

The vigilant navigators. While a PM sets the course, a project manager ensures smooth sailing. They have a keen eye on the timeline, resources, and potential obstacles. Project management helps us avoid hitting icebergs or getting caught in storms. We call them “unexpected challenges”. 

Project managers work closely with the product team to ensure the roadmap is feasible. They also help coordinate the division of work and see projects to completion.

You might not have a large team yet. In this case, you likely have someone else in charge of the roadmap. If you’re operating a startup, founders likely own the roadmap. If you’re a startup founder trying to navigate the world of roadmaps, you’re in the right place!

Similar to the point above, sometimes other team members manage the roadmap before a dedicated product owner comes on board. Engineers and product developers have deep insights into the inner workings of the product. So they’re well suited to manage the product roadmap.

C-level executives

They are the admirals looking at the bigger picture. They might not be involved in the day-to-day plotting of the course, but their vision is still crucial. They have a bird’s-eye view of the entire fleet (company). They also ensure that our ship (product) aligns with the broader fleet’s direction. They get insights from market trends, company and product strategy, and financial factors. These insights can significantly impact the roadmap’s primary goals.

While the product manager might be the primary cartographer of the roadmap, it’s a collaborative effort. Each role brings a unique perspective, ensuring that the roadmap is not only visionary, but also grounded in reality. After all, a map is only as good as the team that uses it!

Speaking of roadmap users – let’s discuss them next.

Who uses the roadmap?

Don’t let your product roadmap become another file lost in your Google Drive! It’s a living, breathing guide that serves multiple audiences. So encourage people to use it! Let’s explore who can benefit from this invaluable tool.

• Internal team

Why? So the devs don’t go rogue on you.

Internal teams are the engine room of our product ship. This includes developers, designers, and QA testers. They turn the roadmap’s vision into reality. And they all need a holistic view of where the product is headed. It helps them understand the context of their tasks.

They also learn the priority of new features. Plus, they discover the interdependencies between different components. This clarity reduces the chances of misalignment or “wildcard” features that haven’t been accounted for. It’s like giving them a compass to make sure they’re always sailing in the right direction.

• External stakeholders

Why? To keep them in the loop.

External stakeholders include investors, partners, and board members. They might not be involved in the daily grind but are still vested in the product’s success.

The roadmap is a snapshot of the product’s strategy, progress, and future direction. By sharing it with them, we’re fostering trust, setting expectations, and ensuring they’re always informed. It’s like sending them a postcard from our journey, letting them know we’re on the right track.

These stakeholders care where their money is going. If they have a way to always check in on your progress, they’ll have much more trust in you. Raising more funds will get easier!

Why? Transparency is the best policy.

In some industries, especially in the SaaS world, companies choose to share their roadmaps with their customers . When done right, this strategy can foster trust and set realistic expectations. This also creates an open communication stream. Customers can send you valuable feedback for future improvements.

They also appreciate being in the know. A public roadmap can make them feel valued and heard. It’s like inviting them on the journey with us, ensuring they know where we’re headed and why.

Curious to see how PMs build in public? Here are some of the best public roadmap examples .

Let’s talk about other types of roadmaps now.

Other types of roadmaps

Up until now, we’ve been focused on product roadmaps. There are also other types of roadmaps that you might find useful.

While product roadmaps are our bread and butter, the concept of roadmapping extends to various domains. Each type serves a unique purpose, catering to different audiences and objectives. Let’s delve deeper into these diverse roadmaps.

Technology roadmap

Purpose : navigate your tech projects

A technology roadmap shows the company’s plan to use new technology. This document helps the company connect its technology needs to its business goals. Your tech roadmap should align with your product roadmap. It lays the foundation your product is built on. 

For the tech team, it’s like having a crystal ball that predicts the future of technology within the organization. Here’s what it might look like:

Software development roadmap

Purpose : “When’s the next update?”

This roadmap is tailored for software products. It details the upcoming features, improvements, and releases. It’s a timeline of developers’ work and when users can expect updates. It’s like a product release calendar, ensuring everyone knows when the next software “season” premieres.

Some companies use their product roadmaps as a software development roadmap. If your roadmap is focused just on engineering, it’s likely a software development roadmap. If it includes other team members (designers, product marketers, etc), it’s a product roadmap. However, the lines may blur.

Here’s what a software roadmap might look like.

Business roadmaps

Purpose : zoom out to the bigger picture

This roadmap shows the company’s strategic plans, goals, and priorities at a high level.  It brings different departments together to work towards the same goals.  Think of it as the company’s strategic blueprint.

Here’s an example of a business roadmap:

“Business” is a broad term. You can also separate a few other roadmaps.

Marketing roadmap

Purpose : to spread the word about your products

This roadmap shows the plans for marketing and promoting products or services. It’s the game plan for brand visibility, ensuring the right message reaches the right audience at the right time.

A product can be exceptional, but you need users to make it profitable. That’s why outlining your marketing initiatives is so crucial.

When your product is complex, it’s easy to get confused while trying to promote it.

A marketing roadmap can help. Here’s an example of a marketing roadmap.

Let’s explore more roadmaps to help you stay organized.

Innovation roadmap

Purpose: “What’s the next big thing?”

An innovation roadmap is all about staying ahead of the curve. It charts future innovations and R&D initiatives.

 It’s hard to plan for innovation. But you can keep track of industry trends, watch the competition, and allow yourself to dream. 

Blue Ocean strategy is a popular framework for innovation. It focuses on finding untapped markets and hidden opportunities within them.

“In blue oceans, demand is created rather than fought over. There is ample opportunity for growth that is both profitable and rapid.” W. Chan Kim , professor of strategy and management at INSEAD

To create an innovation roadmap, take your business roadmap as an example. Narrow it down only to innovative ideas that could help you break through the noise.

Innovative ideas can be groundbreaking for your business.

Project roadmap

Purpose : break down complex projects

This roadmap breaks down tasks, milestones, and deadlines. It’s the project manager’s bible, ensuring every task is on track and stakeholders are informed.

Some projects are straightforward. But, managing your product becomes tougher as it matures and gets more complex. That’s where a project roadmap can really help.

Here’s an example of a sample project roadmap.

Customer journey roadmap

Purpose : try on your customer’s shoes.

This visual representation maps out the customer’s experience with your product. You’ll know where to take your product next when you lay out the whole journey from awareness to advocacy.

It’s almost a brand empathy tool. It helps you experience the product the way your users do. Only then can you understand and cater to your customers’ needs at every touchpoint.

There are a few different ways to lay out your customer journey roadmap. Here’s one of them.

Policy/regulatory roadmap

Purpose : navigating the legal jungle.

This roadmap is great for industries with significant regulatory oversight. It outlines the necessary steps to achieve compliance. It’s the company’s legal guide, ensuring they stay on the right side of the law.

Educational/learning roadmap

Purpose : help you study effectively

This roadmap is tailored for learners. It outlines learning objectives, modules, and progression. This student’s guide ensures they know what to learn, when, and why.

Let’s say you’re studying product management. There’s so much to learn! Also, because this field is relatively new, there’s no single tried and tested learning path. There are so many options to choose from:

• Traditional classes in colleges and universities
• Online courses
• Bootcamps and crash courses
• And much more

A learning roadmap can really help you get organized. You’ll know exactly:

• What you want to learn
• Where you need to start
• In what order you should approach the subject
• Where you can find the necessary information
• How to set and stick to deadlines
• How to set and measure learning outcomes
• And more

This will set you up for a successful career in product management. And speaking of careers…

Career roadmap

Purpose : climbing the corporate ladder one step at a time

This personal development tool outlines the steps, skills, and milestones you need to achieve career goals. It’s the professional’s compass that can guide you through your career journey.

Every day new jobs pop up. Do you want to become a chief automations officer? Or maybe a gamification marketing expert?

You need a plan. And a career roadmap can help you get there.

With proper research, you can get your dream job or even create a new role for yourself.

While the format might differ, the core principle of roadmaps remains the same. They aim to provide clarity, direction, and alignment. Whether you’re a tech guru, marketer, or student, there’s a roadmap tailored to your journey.

Let’s talk about actually creating roadmaps.

How to create a roadmap

Before you start, remember: it’s not about cramming everything in. It’s about prioritizing what truly matters.

We’re going to focus on product roadmaps in this article. Many of the principles apply to other types of roadmaps too.

There are several things you want to include in your roadmap to make it functional and useful.

What to include

User feedback.

Your users are the lifeblood of your product. Their feedback provides invaluable insights into what’s working, what’s not, and what’s missing. When you incorporate customer feedback, your product will evolve in a way that appeals to its audience. 

When your users can see your roadmap, they feel included in your product journey. They’ll know that their voice matters, and their ideas actually come to fruition.

A product feature is a tangible enhancement or addition to your product. Features are promises of value, solving specific user problems or needs. Clearly listing them ensures everyone knows what’s on the horizon .

Some features will come from ideas and requests from your users. Others will be a result of your research and brainstorming. And all these features should take the most prominent place on your roadmap.

We know: you don’t want to include bug reports in your roadmap. But…you should still have a place where you indicate the bugs you’re fixing.

This may seem daunting – announcing to the world that you have issues in your product. But who doesn’t?

If you’re transparent about having and fixing bugs, your users will trust you more. Admitting that you aren’t perfect but committed to improving is a very effective strategy.

Prioritization criteria

Not all features or ideas are created equal. To make sure the most important things get attention, we need clear criteria for prioritizing. This helps balance urgency and impact when allocating resources. 

There are numerous ways to prioritize your features . At Canny, we use the weighted score model. And everyone who uses Canny can customize the weighted scoring formula to suit their needs. Here’s how we use it.

We took the factors that mattered the most to us and assigned a score to each of them (up to 100%). For example, we weigh more urgent items (priority) higher than design readiness.

We add these factors to our prioritization formula in Canny. It then scores ideas for us and tells us what the biggest priority should be. From there, it’s easy to add the winning ideas to the product roadmap and get to work.

Explicitly stating the priority level helps everyone know what to do first and what can wait. This goes beyond just the prioritization criteria we discussed above.

Vote counts can indicate the demand or popularity of a feature, ensuring user needs are front and center. This is especially true for user-driven roadmaps.

You can use votes as one of your prioritization factors.

Assigning ownership ensures accountability. It shows who is in charge of a task or feature, clarifying roles and responsibilities. 

Displaying ownership publicly helps align all your teams. 

Deadlines provide a timeframe for delivery. They set expectations and ensure timely progress, keeping the momentum going.

Clearly visible deadlines help with accountability.

Keeping track of the status of each task or feature provides a real-time snapshot of progress. It helps in managing resources and setting stakeholder expectations.

Estimating how much work a task needs helps assign resources and set realistic deadlines.

Part of building your roadmap is understanding how many resources you have. You also need to clarify what tasks the team can accomplish in a given time with that set of resources.

Milestones are significant achievements or phases in the product’s journey. They provide checkpoints to gauge progress and celebrate successes, keeping the team motivated.

You can showcase your milestones through statuses or changelog entries (when a new feature is shipped).

Here’s how statuses work in Canny.

Here’s how AgencyAnalytics uses Canny’s changelog to share their important milestones.

As mentioned above, this is a very long list. So avoid including everything just for the sake of it. Rather, review this as a list of potential ideas and pick the ones that make the most sense to your organization. Focus on items that help you achieve your OKRs and boost your KPIs.

What not to include

If an item doesn’t add value, clarity, or align with the product’s direction, it’s best left out. Overloading a roadmap can dilute its purpose and make it overwhelming.

For example, if your company isn’t public, you don’t want to share any financials on your public roadmap.

If you have a low-impact feature request that you likely won’t get to, also don’t include it on your roadmap. This will set the wrong expectations.

Building a roadmap from scratch feels like a lot of work. That’s why we created our free roadmap templates !

If you’re looking for a more sophisticated roadmap tool that can help you automate this process, keep reading.

Roadmap tools 

Canny offers a streamlined approach to roadmapping. Our product roadmap tool pulls in user feedback and helps you prioritize each idea in one platform. It’s like having a GPS for your product journey, ensuring you’re always on the right path.

There are other roadmap tools out there. Many aren’t designed for roadmaps, but can be adapted. For example, companies like SocialBee use Trello for their roadmap. 

We’ve gathered the best public roadmap examples here – take a look! Drawing inspiration from successful examples can give you new ideas.

Now that you’ve built a roadmap, let’s discuss how to use it.

How to use the product roadmap

An effective product roadmap relies on its implementation. It’s not just about creating it, but also about driving alignment, decision-making, and progress. Let’s delve deeper into how to make the most of your roadmap.

• Communicate its value

It’s more than just a pretty visual. A roadmap is a strategic document that outlines a product’s vision, direction, and priorities. It is crucial to communicate its importance to all stakeholders, from developers to executives. So make sure everyone knows its purpose: to set expectations, clarify, and guide decisions. Refer to it frequently in meetings, presentations, and discussions to reinforce its importance.

Invite your users to review your roadmap if it is public . You should also provide them with the opportunity to submit ideas.

• Stick to it

It can be tempting to pursue every new idea or piece of feedback. Still, try to follow the plans you initially outlined in the roadmap. After all, you prioritized those ideas for a reason. This sets a direction and provides a sense of stability. And that’s the whole point of a roadmap!

You still need to strike a balance between consistency and adaptability, though. Your product plan can change due to market shifts, user feedback, or technological advancements. Being too rigid can lead to missed opportunities or misalignment with current needs.

Our advice: use your best judgment. Try not to get too distracted, but also be ready to pivot.

• Adjust as needed

The roadmap shouldn’t be set in stone. You may need to make changes as you collect more information, get feedback, or face unexpected obstacles.

Review your roadmap regularly. This way it’ll remain relevant and aligned with the product goal and market realities. Your roadmap will also evolve with the product, always pointing toward maximum value and impact.

A product roadmap is both a guide and a communication tool. Use it, reiterate its value, and stay consistent but flexible. And remember to make necessary adjustments. That’s how it can remain a dynamic tool that drives your product towards success.

Build better products with a roadmap

In the end, a roadmap is more than just a table. It’s your vision, strategy, and commitment to your product. So, grab that coffee, roll up your sleeves, and let’s build something amazing together!

Cheers to roadmaps and the clarity they bring! 🚀

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

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How to Create Roadmaps in PowerPoint and How to Use Them

It’s one thing to have to sit through a boring presentation.  It’s quite another to give a boring presentation.

As a viewer, you don’t have much to say in the way that a presentation is delivered.

As a presenter, you are in complete control.  You decide whether your presentation will be like 95% of all other presentations, meaning “boring”, or you can elevate your presentation to the 5% level… engaging and memorable.

Watch video tutorial

In this tutorial:

• Causes of a “Bad” Presentation
• Utilizing Roadmaps
• Roadmaps without Roads
• Discussing Project Timelines
• Slide Design
• Bettering Our Presentations
• PowerPoint Productivity Tip
• Using Simple Slides
• So, Remember

It can be argued that if you look back on anything you created, no matter the discipline: painting, music, woodworking, presenting, etc… and are not completely embarrassed by your creation, then you haven’t grown in that discipline.

If you still see your creations in the same light and from the same perspective as when they were made, then you haven’t improved.

It’s difficult to be critical of one’s creations, but an honest critique that identifies the faults and failings is the only thing that will force you to better yourself, to improve one’s craft.

Think back to some of your earliest presentations.  At the time you may have thought it was flawless and the best presentation ever was given.  If you could have videoed the presentation, it’s likely that watching the presentation years later would arouse feelings of embarrassment and make you feel like hiding from society.

But that’s okay.  You’re supposed to be bad at things when you’re new to them.  Very few people have natural talent, and even those with talent take years of practice to make it look effortless.   The learning never stops, even for the experts.

Several factors can contribute to a bad presentation.  Some common elements are:

• Presentation delivery
• Flow of the presentation
• Design of the slides

When it comes to presentation delivery, that topic is quite varied and unique from person to person.  It could easily become a video Web-series unto itself.

Let’s focus on the other two: flow and design.

Think of a roadmap as a more interactive form of a table of contents.

Instead of displaying your table of contents like this…

…wouldn’t it be more engaging to present it like this?

It’s clear that with each step your audience is progressing and learning more.  They’re moving “up the road” to a certain outcome or destination.

The term “roadmap” is generic; it doesn’t mean that you must have a literal road on your slide.  It’s more figurative.

The type of infographic you use to represent progression is dependent on the topic and your audience.

If you were to present to a group of students, you may wish to represent progression like the following.

The presentation will contain many slides detailing your content, but each time you transition to a new section, you revisit the introductory slide to show where in the progression you have traveled.

This way the audience knows several things:

• Where they currently are in the story
• Where they’ve come from
• Where’ they’re going
• And most importantly to some, where the end ( goal ) is located

If you are presenting the timeline of a project, you can graphically represent the milestones of the project.

A nice touch would be to utilize PowerPoint’s  Slide Zoom  feature to “jump” to detail slides behind each milestone, then returning to the timeline to move on to the next milestone.

For more information about PowerPoint’s amazing  Slide Zoom  feature,  click here .

Designing your slides in this way makes your presentations more interesting and easier to follow.  But… every benefit comes at a cost.

Anyone who’s ever put together a visually interesting and dynamic presentation knows that it can take quite a bit of time to put together a polished presentation.  And if you’re one who’s not very artistically inclined, this can be daunting.

Luckily for all of us, there is a solution.   Simple Slides .*

The folks at  Simple Slides  create some of the most effective and visually interesting infographics and slides you will find on the Web.

Before  Simple Slides , I created all my infographics from scratch.

Inserting shapes, adding connectors, merging shapes, controlling layers, adding animation… it took a LOT of time, patience, and creativity.  Three things that are in short supply these days for most people.

The idea of a roadmap slide was not new to me, I had used them in earlier courses to showcase to the students wherein the learning process we had traveled.

As you can see, compared with roadmap slides from  Simple Slides , my old roadmap slides left a lot to be desired.

The slide doesn’t seem like it took much effort to create, but this was easily a day’s worth of work.  Much of this work was spent researching other presentation ideas, then through trial and error, cobbling together my version of a roadmap.

Formatting, aligning, animating… these things take time.  For many of us, a LOT of time.  We often spend more time creating the visuals than we do on the topic material.

Had I known at the time of  Simple Slides , I would have browsed their library of existing slides, found one that was the closest fit to my own, then plugged in the data and changed the icons to fit my needs.

If you have worked in a corporate environment, you’ve likely seen slides that look like this:

As a presenter, it’s easy to pack your speech onto your slide.  This acts as a safety net in case you forget what you were going to say.

The problem (among many) is that many presenters end up reading the slides to their audience.  This is what is often referred to as a “slideument”.

If you are going to read your presentation, you may as well just print your presentation, give it to the audience, and let them read it for themselves.

Also, while you’re reading one part of the slide, audience members are looking at other parts of your slide.  Once they do this, they are no longer listening to you.

Reduce the slide to only display core words for each main point, then include icons or infographics to visually enhance the words.

Here’s an alternative to the “slideument” from before.

The slide contains the following elements:

• Main message or title at the top
• Infographic to visualize the required steps
• Stripped-down text to only show the essentials

This way it is immediately understood what the message is and the attention remains on you, the presenter.

Suppose you’re working on a new presentation and you discover that you can save development time by reusing slides from an existing presentation.

The old way of reusing slides involves:

• Browse to the old presentation
• Open the old presentation
• Scroll through the slides
• Find the applicable slide
• Copy the slide
• Switch to the current presentation
• Paste the slide
• Decide on old formatting or current formatting

The better way to reuse slides is by using the  Reuse Slides  feature located on the  Home  ribbon in the  Slides  group.

In the  Reuse Slides  panel that appears on the right, you are presented with recommended files based on past presentations.

If the desired presentation isn’t listed, you can either perform a keyword search for the slideshow or click  Browse  to manually select the presentation.

Once you have discovered your presentation, select  Choose Slides  to open the presentation in a thumbnail view.

Clicking on a thumbnail of a slide will insert the slide into your current presentation.

If you wish to retain the formatting (colors, fonts, layout, etc…) of the source presentation, make sure the  Use Source Formatting  feature is checked.

If you want the inserted slide to take on the formatting of the new presentation, clear the  Use Source Formatting  option before slide insertion.

If you forgot to set this option before slide insertion, you can change the behavior after the fact by selecting the  Paste Options  button to alternate between  Source Formatting  and  Destination Formatting .

The Advantage to the Reuse Slides Feature

There are countless times when copying slides from an older presentation where I accidentally changed the slides in the OLD slide deck instead of the NEW slide deck and didn’t realize it until I had already saved the presentation, effectively corrupting my old slides.

The  Reuse Slides  feature prevents this from happening since it’s a read-only feature.

By using  Simple Slides , you have access to…

• Over 70 slide packs
• Over 10,000 slides
• More than 3,000 icons

The slides are neatly organized and cover over 40 different organizations/industries.

Because there are so many slide options, you can easily adjust the slides and the icons to fit your topic and audience.

If you purchase the  Premium Package  you will receive  Lifetime Updates .  This means you will receive any new slides, designs, and icons added to the library for free.

If you are unsure if this service is right for you, you can request a free sample to try before you make your final decision.

• Use roadmaps to give your audience orientation during the presentation
• Use as little text on the slides as possible
• Use supporting images and/or infographics in place of text
• Reuse slides safely by using the  Reuse Slides  feature in PowerPoint

* Kindly note: The article contains affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you, we will receive a small commission if you make a purchase using the links. This helps support our website and  YouTube channel  and allows us to continue to make videos & articles like this. Thank you for your support!

Leila Gharani

I'm a 6x Microsoft MVP with over 15 years of experience implementing and professionals on Management Information Systems of different sizes and nature.

My background is Masters in Economics, Economist, Consultant, Oracle HFM Accounting Systems Expert, SAP BW Project Manager. My passion is teaching, experimenting and sharing. I am also addicted to learning and enjoy taking online courses on a variety of topics.

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How To Create A Roadmap In PowerPoint? Detailed Tutorial

A roadmap outlines a project, product, or organization's goals, milestones, timelines, and key events in a visually appealing way. It aligns the team with the vision and helps in decision-making and better execution. This blog will teach you how to create a roadmap in PowerPoint.

A roadmap is a visual representation of a plan or strategy that outlines the steps and milestones necessary to achieve a specific goal. It is beneficial for aligning teams and stakeholders, as it provides a common understanding of the goals and objectives to achieve. That’s why you should consider learning how to create a roadmap in PowerPoint.

You can create roadmaps in various formats, including Gantt charts, flowcharts, and mind maps. They can also be made using multiple tools, including Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, and specialized project management software.

In this tutorial, we will guide you to create roadmap in PowerPoint from scratch as well as from templates. Whether you are a business owner, project manager, or just looking for a way to organize your ideas visually, this guide will give you the tools you need to create a professional and practical roadmap. 

How is a Roadmap useful In business planning and strategy?

Before we learn how to create a roadmap in PowerPoint, let’s understand why it is essential. For several reasons, a roadmap presentation is a valuable tool for business planning and strategy. These include:

• Provides a clear overview of a business’s direction: By outlining the steps or milestones needed to achieve a specific goal, a roadmap helps to keep everyone on track and aligned toward the same objective. Companies with multiple teams or shareholders must ensure that all efforts are aligned to the same goal, thus guaranteeing a successful outcome.
• Identifies potential roadblocks and challenges: It is an excellent tool for pinpointing issues requiring extra effort and resources. It allows businesses to address potential issues proactively before they become significant problems.
• Tracks progress and allows for adjustments: To stay on track toward achieving their goals, businesses can maintain success by routinely assessing and revising their roadmap – while making necessary adaptations.
• Improves communication and collaboration: It provides a common understanding of the goals and objectives that you need to achieve, which can enhance communication and cooperation between teams and stakeholders.
• Increases efficiency and productivity: It can streamline processes and eliminate unnecessary tasks by outlining the steps needed to achieve a goal, increasing efficiency and productivity.

How To Create A Roadmap In PowerPoint Using Templates?

Follow the steps mentioned below to create roadmap in PowerPoint using templates:

Step 1: Open PowerPoint on your desktop.

Step 2: Navigate to the left sidebar on the start screen and click ‘New’ right below the ‘Home’ icon.

Step 3: Enter ‘Roadmap’ in the search box and press the search button. The PowerPoint templates collection will load after a few seconds.

Step 4: Choose a template from the collection and press the ‘Create’ button. You can experiment with different templates until you discover one that works. You can even choose layouts with a dark theme.

Step 5 : You will see the roadmap in your slide. You can begin personalizing it by adding text and other content according to your needs.

How To Create A Roadmap In Powerpoint From Scratch?

Step 1: Create a new PowerPoint presentation on your desktop.

Step 2: Select the ‘Insert’ tab, then ‘SmartArt.’ SmartArt visuals are available in hundreds of variations.

Step 3: To refine your search, go to the ‘SmartArt’ dialog box’s left panel and choose ‘Process.’ If you don’t find what you’re looking for, you may go to Office.com at the bottom of the dialog box. It will give you access to even more template choices.

Step 4: A preview will appear in the right pane when you pick a SmartArt graphic.

Step 5: Press the ‘OK’ button to confirm your choice and the SmartArt graphic will appear on the slide.

Step 6 : Now, you need to add timelines. You can use these shapes to show timelines by connecting multiple shapes.

Step 7 : Add more shapes to highlight key events or milestones.

Step 8: Add important text, pictures, infographics, audio recordings, and videos to your slide.

Step 9 : Add images or graphics to make it more creative.

Step 10 : Review and save your presentation in any format you like.

How To Create A Roadmap In PowerPoint Using Slideuplift’s Templates?

Using SlideUpLift’s PowerPoint Templates , you get more options for building amazing presentations. We have custom-designed many visualizations in SmartArt to offer you more choices. Follow the below-mentioned steps to create roadmap in PowerPoint using Slideuplift’s templates:

Step 1: Visit Slideuplift.com and browse through thousands of templates. It offers multiple templates for different purposes, targeting different fields. They have business templates , employee, marketing, product roadmap templates , and personal templates, among others.

Step 2: Choose the Template that matches your requirements and download it.

Step 3: Open the template through MS PowerPoint

Step 4: You will see editable slides, which you can edit and customize to suit your presentation needs. Change images and colors according to your brand guidelines, and you’re good to go.

Step 5: Review all the details and save this presentation.

Now, you know how to create roadmap in PowerPoint.

Building a roadmap is a valuable tool for visually organizing and outlining the milestones or steps needed to achieve a specific goal. It helps provide a clear overview of a project or business’s direction and can be used to track progress and make adjustments as needed. We hope this guide has helped you learn how to create a roadmap in PowerPoint and that you can now confidently create a roadmap in PowerPoint.

Can I customize the design of my roadmap in MS PowerPoint?

Yes, You can customize all your slides in PowerPoint.

What elements should I include in my roadmap?

You should include timelines, milestones, tasks, key events, and any other relevant details that convey the progression of your goals.

How can I ensure that my roadmap is easy to understand and visually appealing?

Use clear labels, consistent formatting, appropriate visual elements (such as icons or images), and avoid overcrowding the slide with unnecessary details.

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Product Roadmap Presentation: 6 Examples Included Templates

Simon Sinek’s rise to fame is marked by his unwavering determination to challenge conventional thinking.

He consistently questions corporate practices and fearlessly presents bold opinions that disrupt the status quo.

In his book “Start with Why” , Simon Sinek boldly claims that the ‘Why’ behind your actions matters more than the ‘What’. This principle isn’t limited to leadership or personal motivation; it extends to every facet of the business, including product roadmaps. Product roadmaps transcend mere slides or visuals; they serve as the linchpin for strategically aligning internal teams and external stakeholders with the product vision and strategy .

They act as the bridge that connects the visionary ‘Why’ with the practical ‘What’, bringing the envisioned goals within the realm of execution.

So how to create and present roadmaps effectively?

In this article, we’ll reveal the art of creating roadmap presentations that don’t just align internal teams and external users but also set the stage for a successful execution. 

Limitations of relying on PowerPoint

During my early days in Product Management , I was introduced to PowerPoint for building roadmaps.

Our former product manager shared a bunch of Powerpoint templates with us and we loved the flexibility and versatility the tool provided.

However, it didn’t take long for us to realize that it had a number of limitations that we couldn’t ignore.

While it is a versatile tool for various presentation needs, it may not be the best fit for roadmap presentations. 

Please look at the PowerPoint template above that I have frequently used to present roadmaps during the early days.

Maintenance challenges

Roadmaps often evolve with changing business priorities and require a more dynamic platform that can reflect real-time changes and updates.

Anyone who has used PowerPoint would know how easy it is to become disoriented by the misalignments of the visual elements and how hard it can get to maintain and update.

Moreover, given that the Powerpoint roadmaps always sit in their own silos, away from the tools used by the product development teams, any updates in the roadmap have to be manually translated into the development plans each time to ensure consistency. 

Presentation challenges

Modern roadmaps are not just about displaying information but also about engaging the audience.

Powerpoint’s lack of interactive elements can make a roadmap feel one-dimensional, missing out on the depth and engagement that interactive platforms offer.

Consider you are presenting your product’s roadmap at your annual town hall. You might want to resort to multiple views of the visual product roadmap, starting with a bucketized view, then a timeline view, and maybe a private/public view for different types of audience. With Powerpoint, it would mean duplicating all the effort to create each view you need.

Unlike specialized roadmapping tools, Powerpoint presentations lacks the capability to prioritize items on the go, making it challenging to convey behind-the-scenes efforts for choosing certain work items to stakeholders.

Collaboration challenges

Most product teams share roadmaps with stakeholders and external users to get their feedback and input. But sharing a Powerpoint roadmap presentation is like sending a message in a bottle. You have no way of knowing who accessed it, how they interacted with it, or what parts caught their attention. 

It also doesn’t allow users to provide qualitative feedback or upvote features directly on the roadmap.

This missed opportunity for engagement can be a significant blind spot and may lead to a disconnect between the product team and its users.

Relying solely on Powerpoint can be akin to using a compass in the age of GPS. 

Recognizing these limitations and exploring specialized roadmapping tools can lead to more effective, engaging, and insightful presentations.

The dynamic, interactive, and collaborative nature of roadmaps demands a platform that can keep pace.

6 templates for product roadmap presentations

Each style and methodology of roadmapping guides the product’s voyage, ensuring that every stakeholder, internal and external, is privy to the course ahead, its landmarks, and its destinations. 

Crafting your roadmap to echo both the intricacies your sales team and the broad strokes of your product’s journey ensures an informed, engaged, and collaborative voyage toward product success.

1. Kanban view

Netflix Roadmap, as taken from Gibson Hiddle’s blog

The Kanban View, with its intuitive design and inherent flexibility, serves as a potent tool for product roadmap presentation, ensuring tasks and initiatives are succinctly organized under buckets of time (monthly, quarterly or yearly), allowing stakeholders to clearly see where the development is headed in the future.

However, with a Kanban view , there is a risk of oversimplifying complex details as intrinsic dependencies and specific timelines may be underrepresented.

Additionally, the straightforward visual layout may also pose challenges when it comes to prioritization within each bucket, especially in larger and more complex product scenarios.

👉 Real-world Examples: Github Roadmap , Trello Roadmap , Netflix Roadmap

2. Now, Next, Later

The Now, Next, Later framework is an adaptation of the Kanban view and brings a high-level perspective to product roadmaps, distinctly categorizing items into immediate (Now), short-term (Next), and future (Later) buckets. 

It acts as a telescope scanning horizons, providing insights and maintaining a focus that spans from present tasks to future endeavors without committing to exact timelines. It does so without binding itself to precise timelines. This flexibility is especially vital for startups, where the ability to adapt to rapid shifts in priority is essential. Now, Next, Later roadmap can server as a effective product roadmap presentation.

👉 Real-world Examples: Lasso Roadmap , ProductBoard Template

3. Calendar or Timeline-Based roadmap

The Timeline view of a product roadmap (or some people’s saying timeline roadmaps) provides a clear, logical outline of the product’s development cycle, aiding transparent communication and efficient resource management.

It effectively conveys the product’s chronological progression, presenting start and end dates and facilitating stakeholder understanding and anticipating project phases. It also captures task dependencies, offering a realistic view of the project’s progression and helping teams avoid bottlenecks and delays.

👉 Real-world Examples: Notion Template

4. Private and Public roadmap views

Private roadmaps function as the organizational blueprint, keeping detailed strategies, technical specs, and precise timelines shielded from external view. It ensures all internal teams are aligned with the developmental, marketing, and deployment strategy, offering a detailed, confidential space for open internal discussions and strategic planning. 

On the flip side, Public roadmaps invite and incorporate user feedback , encouraging a community-driven development approach. They enable users to interact directly with the roadmap, voicing their preferences through upvotes and comments. This transparent strategy provides tangible data on user preferences and desires, aiding teams in prioritizing and refining features based on actual user input and demand.

Together, they facilitate a balanced development approach, harmonizing user involvement with technical teams and internal strategic alignment to navigate through the intricate path of product development.

👉 Real-world Examples: Usersnap Public Roadmap , Microsoft 365 Public Roadmap , Google Classroom Public Roadmap , Loom Public Roadmap , Airtable Public Roadmap

5. Roadmap swimlanes

Multifaceted organizations often employ multiple swimlanes to visualize parallel developments across different products or departments. 

A Portfolio Roadmap brings together product development trajectories of varied, albeit interconnected products such as Google Search, Maps, Gmail and Drive.

This panoramic view enables business stakeholders and product managers to quickly apprehend the status, progress, and future plans for an entire portfolio, facilitating informed strategic decisions and efficient resource allocation across varied products.

Simultaneously, Department specific roadmap roadmaps carve out a dedicated lane for each department, such as Marketing team or Development team, to detail their particular journey, milestones, and activities. While providing a detailed breakdown of activities, they also offer a lens to visualize how each team’s efforts contribute to the overall product and organizational objectives.

👉 Real-world Examples: Aha! Template , Jenkins Roadmap

6. Goals-based roadmaps

Goals or outcome-based roadmaps adeptly center the strategic narrative on overarching objectives, minimizing the explicit focus on granular details.

This abstraction allows stakeholders to grasp the overarching strategy and direction without getting mired in the specifics of features, which may evolve over time. 

By focusing primarily on outcomes, these roadmaps inherently embed resilience against the tides of technological changes and varying feedback, as they’re not tied to specific features or solutions that may need to shift in response to evolving contexts or insights. 

👉 Real-world Examples: GO template , Airfocus Template , Miro template

Best practices and ideas for roadmap presentation

In the grand theater of business, a roadmap presentation is your spotlight moment.

It’s where visions are shared, strategies are unveiled, and futures are shaped.

Here are some tips on how to craft a roadmap presentation that’s both an informative guide and a work of art.

Tip #1 – Start with the ‘Why’

Apple, under the visionary leadership of Steve Jobs, always began with the ‘why’. Before diving into the intricacies of a product, they delved into its purpose.

Similarly, start your roadmap presentation by addressing the ‘why’. Why this product? Why now? This sets the stage for a compelling, memorable, and meaningful narrative itself.

For internal presentations, I have also found that starting a product roadmap presentation off with a refresher of the product’s strategy can help make your next couple of hours much more peaceful.

Tip #2 – Unveil the BTS work

Akin to the BTS episodes of any show on Netflix, sharing all the effort that went into production (the direction, the schedules, the travelling, the equipment, the retakes etc) makes the audience appreciate the end result more.

Therefore, it is always helpful to demonstrate the discovery process you followed for conducting your market research, brainstorming and validating ideas, generating usability reports, conducting focus groups, surveys etc. This adds credibility.

And never be shy to show the hiccups and the wrong turns during your journey. Because you never know, just like a Friend’s blooper reel, the retakes might find more traction with your audience than the actual episodes.

Tip #3 – Stay away from the sharks

Whether you are presenting to internal stakeholders or external users, both would be interesting to know your product’s positioning through your roadmap. 

I recently attended a product fair where a CEO introduced his product roadmap with “think of it as AWS Cloud”, without differentiating it in any way. I spent the next 30 mins of the presentation connecting all their features with AWS Cloud features. 

It is crucial to establish a differentiating factor against your competition and build your presentation around that. Tesla entered the automotive space several decades later than its competitors like Toyota, Ford, Ferrari and others. However, by differentiating itself as a leader in the EV space, it created a new market landscape for itself.

Tip #4 – Focus on the outcomes

The roadmap features you spent weeks fine-tuning all the details are great. However, the audience is mostly only interested in what it really means for them.

Therefore, in your presentation, it is critical to shift the focus from features to outcomes.

If it is the external users of the product, you need to focus on how the roadmap aligns with their needs. How does the roadmap solve their pain points? For example, adding the social login capability will allow you the flexibility of SSO, where you don’t have to remember an extra set of login credentials.

On the other side, if it is the executive stakeholders or the investors, the focus should be to present how each roadmap item would help achieve the key business metrics and goals. Using the same example, adding the social login will help reduce the drop-offs during registration and increase our user acquisition rate by 15%.

This perspective resonates more with stakeholders than merely going over the buy in the features list.

Tip #5 – The ending

Once again, I am a big Steve Jobs fan. The master of marketing that he was, leaving an impression on the audience was his forte.

He would always save the big picture and the biggest announcement for the end. His famous “One more thing…” technique has since been copied by many leaders across the industry to conclude their presentation on a high-note.

Leveraging feedback for roadmap presentation and varied board views of Usersnap

Feedback is the lifeblood of any product. Integrating feedback into your roadmap presentations ensures they remain relevant and aligned with user needs. 

The importance of internal and external board views cannot be overstated.

While a public board view with upvoting engages customers and end-users, a limited board view ensures stakeholders are aligned, setting the stage for successful project execution. With the right tools, practices, and request feedback mechanisms, they can be the difference between product success and obscurity.

Usersnap’s varied board views offer a versatile way to present and gather feedback. Whether it’s the public portal for guest users or the limited board view for stakeholders, you can use the power of advanced filters to present different views of your roadmap to different users.

The variety of roadmap presentation styles is tailored to address specific product development needs and audience types. However, leveraging tools like Usersnap, which offer dynamic multiple views and capture customer feedback, can be instrumental in effectively presenting and adapting these roadmaps to various scenarios and stakeholder preferences.

Capture user feedback easily. Get more insights and make confident product decisions.

And if you’re ready to try out a customer feedback software, Usersnap offers a free trial. Sign up today or book a demo with our feedback specialists.

30+ Best Roadmap Presentation Templates

A roadmap presentation is one of the most effective methods of detailing the past, present, and future for product and business development. A PowerPoint roadmap template will come packed with timelines, tables, infographics, icons, and much more to make your presentation look more professional.

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FAQs About Roadmap Presentation Templates

What is a roadmap presentation template.

A roadmap presentation template is a visual tool often utilized in project management and business strategy planning. This tool can outline timeline, strategy or a chronological order of activities and is often used to communicate the strategic direction of the business, or the planned steps to achieve a specific goal or complete a project.

These templates are designed with graphics or diagrams that outline a detailed path from the start of the project to its completion. They make it easier to illustrate and communicate complex information, project timelines, product development stages and other strategic planning details in a simplified and easy-to-understand manner.

What should I include in a roadmap presentation template?

A well-structured roadmap presentation template should include a timeline, which could be yearly, quarterly, or monthly depending on the project duration. It should also have a clear indication of key milestones, major tasks, and main objectives. Other items that could be included are resource allocation, potential risks, the scope of work and strategic initiatives of the project.

Remember your audience when designing your roadmap presentation. Make sure it's appropriate for its intended audience, which could range from project team members to stakeholders or clients. Provide enough detail for your audience to understand the project's progression, but not so much that it becomes confusing or overwhelming.

Why is using a roadmap presentation template important?

Using a roadmap presentation template is crucial as it helps to showcase the project’s objectives, priorities, respective timelines, and deliverables in a clear and precise manner. It promotes clear communication, keeping everyone — from team members to stakeholders — aligned on what the plan is and how it will be executed. This can help ensure all parties stay on the same page and foster better project management.

Another key to using a roadmap is in its visuals. Visualizing these aspects makes it more engaging and easily understandable as compared to text-heavy documents. This can lead to better comprehension, improved collaboration, and more efficient progression throughout the project's duration.

Are roadmap presentation templates customizable?

Yes, roadmap presentation templates are customizable and flexible to suit specific project needs. Templates are usually designed to be adaptable to a broad range of project types and timelines. Templates can be altered in terms of colours, layout, graphics and text to meet particular needs and to adequately reflect the nature and intricacy of any project or plan.

By customizing a roadmap template, a project manager or team can ensure it accurately represents their project's timeline, milestones and objectives. However, always remember to maintain the simplicity and clarity of the roadmap for seamless comprehension by all involved parties.

Where can I find reliable roadmap presentation templates?

Roadmap presentation templates are available from a number of sources. Software programs like Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, and online platforms like Canva, Slidesgo, Venngage and more, offer a wide variety of customizable roadmap presentation templates. Choose one that fits your project's needs and is easy to edit according to your specifications.

When choosing a template, consider factors such as the duration of your project, the number of tasks, and the level of detail necessary in your roadmap. Make sure the structure and design of the selected template meet your needs and are easily understandable to your audience.

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What is a Project Roadmap? Definition, How-to, and Templates

One reason project managers tend to easily get distracted by the details and lose track of the project goal(s) is due to the many important components involved in projects. You need to effectively communicate your goals and key milestones in the project to all parties involved.

But how do you quickly pass across the projects’ goals, allocated resources, risks, and deliverables to stakeholders? Out of the different project planning documentation such as the project charter , the project roadmap is a key visual tool that can help project managers explain projects to stakeholders.

In this guide, you will learn how to create well-thought-out roadmaps for multiple projects to connect all pieces of the project management puzzle.

Let’s get started.

What is a Project Roadmap?

A project roadmap serves as a visual representation of a project’s goals, milestones, deliverables, and risks spread out on a timeline . You can view a roadmap as a simple visual timeline that presents fewer details than a project plan and focuses on communicating only important elements of the project strategy to relevant stakeholders.

During project execution , the project management roadmap also serves as a reference tool. Successful project managers use this visual tool to keep everyone on track with the same goals, risks, and deliverables, among others agreed upon, all the way through the project.

This highly visual document is a communication tool that shows every team member and other stakeholders what is expected from them as well as the project.

The project manager is responsible for establishing this project management tool and the level of detail contained in it depends on who its intended user or audience is. Roadmaps for senior executives, for instance, have fewer details than those intended to be used by your development team.

How Can a Project Roadmap Help Project Managers and the Project Team?

From its more apparent use as a communication tool to its use as a means for ensuring accountability among your team members, a project management roadmap offers you great help.

1. Present Information to Project Stakeholders

A project roadmap constantly keeps key stakeholders informed about important information on project expectations. High-level details are communicated to the development team and kept open to them throughout the project management lifecycle , while executives and the project manager always have a means of monitoring the project’s progress.

2. Helps Measure Project Progress

Through proper management of the roadmap, up-to-date information on work done by the development team member is available to senior stakeholders. They easily track progress and know the right decisions to take at the right time.

3. Helps You Know How and What to Prioritize

Project roadmaps show how elements of the project are prioritized. This means proper implementation of the roadmap ensures that focus is placed on achieving the most important outcomes first.

Goals are aligned and deadlines are met. Everyone concentrates on the same deliverables, milestones, and risks, and eventually achieves the same objectives without any conflict.

4. Ensures Effective Coordination of the Project

Work on the project is well-coordinated as everyone has a central reference point guiding their work. The existence of multiple project roadmaps with different uses and for different personnel means everyone has access to only project details that matter.

This makes them highly actionable compared to general documents like project plans with overwhelming details or that may be hard for some individuals to read.

5. Ensures Effective Communication

Overall, project or product roadmaps help you achieve efficient communication of and visibility into project goals, deliverables, milestones, and risks, as well as coordination and alignment of team members and work towards taking care of these.

Key Elements of a Project Roadmap

Although a roadmap in project management shares certain key components with other project documents, it is not a tool intended to replace other documents like the project charter or project plan.

Elements within a roadmap are kept as subtly detailed as possible. They are intended to provide all key stakeholders, including senior executives, and the development team, with a general bird’s eye view of the project’s objectives and development to take note of and work towards.

So what are these elements?

1. Scheduled Timeline

A project roadmap is a high-level timeline of the project. This timeline is scheduled, with dates and deadlines identified for individual projects.

With this, the first noticeable element of a roadmap is its existence as a project schedule. You do not include a lot of details but only important points for deliverables within the timeline. Using Gantt charts helps make the roadmap more visual.

2. Milestones

Project milestones are the strategic goals to be met during the project’s development lifecycle . They are merged with dates and deadlines for them to be met within the roadmap timeline. Including key milestones within a project roadmap is extremely important as it is only with these that the team members know what they are working towards.

3. Deliverables and Dependencies

Project roadmaps contain deliverables on which your development team works. Depending on the type of roadmap, they are also merged with dates acting as deadlines for their production. These deliverables are also linked with each other.

A connection is made on how one affects another and team members know where priorities lie in delivering each one of them.

4. General Resource Allocation

Unlike the project plan (a project planning tool), details on resource or portfolio management contained in a roadmap are less detailed. Resource allocation relates to resources laid down for the general project rather than for different tasks or project phases. Within the project roadmap, you display allocated resources estimated to fulfill the needs of the overall project till its completion.

Your project roadmap is expected to contain risks to be avoided in the development of the project as well as when these risks are to be expected (if this can be identified).

6. Contacts

Although not a very common element of a roadmap, contacts prove very useful when you deal with other teams. You include points of contact for these individuals so your team members have access to them in case of any need for communication.

How to Create a Project Roadmap

No matter what visual project management software you use to see the big picture of your projects, there are particular steps worth taking to ensure that every element and important aspect of it is covered.

1. Identify Overall Project Objectives

The project roadmap exists to guide the project team in their work on the project. How does it achieve its aim and how do team members know they are on the right track when the goals of the project are not defined? The first step in creating a roadmap is defining the project goals and objectives.

You identify the project’s goals and how they align with overall company goals, as well as the overall project scope and its audience. Defining the project goals and objectives helps you break down the project into smaller bits and identify other major elements of the project roadmap.

For instance, you easily know the milestones to measure progress on the project, important deliverables for the project to advance, and common risks and issues in attaining these goals. In identifying your project objectives, however, you want to make sure that they are measurable.

2. Establish KPIs

This is where measurable project goals are important. KPIs are tools or mediums through which work on the project is assessed in comparison to defined goals. They are metrics that represent the project’s status and you use them to quantify work on the project.

The existence of KPIs helps make roadmaps actionable for project managers . They mainly use it to monitor the progress of work on the project and make appropriate adjustments to the roadmap when necessary.

3. Define the Project Timeline

Set up a timeline within which these goals are attainable. Here, you want to consider the estimated length of the project as well as the important dates and milestones to be placed on the timeline.

Using a project calendar makes this easier to pull off. Take your identified milestones and place them on certain dates. Create your timeline with only these dates included at certain points within it. While doing this, you take note of milestones that are dependent on each other.

4. Create a Prototype Project Roadmap

With a mock-up roadmap, you want to test whether the objectives, deliverables, milestones, and risks give a complete high-level view of the project. You also want to test your KPIs and the arrangement of elements on the timeline so that they seamlessly and effectively work.

5. Create an Actual Roadmap

After optimizing the prototype roadmap and determining the best structure and most relevant elements, create your original project roadmap.

The details included in this roadmap depend on the audience of the project roadmap and you want to make sure they are appropriate. For instance, details in roadmaps for senior executives are typically less than details included in roadmaps used by the development team. Using a Gantt chart makes it more visually appealing to the intended audience.

6. Review with Stakeholders

Senior executives and every other stakeholder making use of the project roadmap are brought into the mix, with these individuals indicating whether the roadmap serves its purpose with them.

Typically, this stage is for review by the project sponsors, since members of the project team are already engaged with the roadmap. Reviewing internal and external stakeholders is the final step before the approval and implementation of the project roadmap begins. This stage helps manage stakeholder expectations.

7. Maintain Continuous Monitoring and Optimizations

The project roadmap is not a rigid visualization that remains the same throughout the project lifecycle. This remains flexible and susceptible to changes where these changes are necessary within the project development process.

After work begins on the project and while the roadmap is implemented, the project manager ensures that necessary changes are represented within it. He or she makes sure that all details included in existing roadmaps are up to date.

Maintaining continuous monitoring and optimizations is important to always keep all team members and other stakeholders aligned with important elements of the project and ensure expectations and outcomes are not in conflict with each other.

Project Roadmap Example

Here are a few roadmap templates showing the details contained in them and who makes use of them.

1. General Project Roadmap

This is what a typical project roadmap looks like. You have a complete view of the project timeline, deliverables expected from the team, and the time they are expected. With this, every individual within your team always knows what is to be worked on at a particular time and where deadlines exist.

2. Project Activities Roadmap

Here is a more detailed project roadmap presented in a Gantt chart view, giving deeper information on the tasks and deliverables expected from team members.

As expected, this is a roadmap intended to be used by your development team and it lets them know where priorities lie in producing these deliverables and completing tasks on the project. This roadmap shows parts of the project that are completed, tasks that are in progress, and deliverables on which work is yet to start.

3. Project Initiative Roadmap

A project initiative roadmap shows details about initiatives for improvements on project management processes. This Gantt chart example shows a high-level overview of the project objectives on improvements and the associated deliverables in achieving them. Deadlines are not well defined, however, everyone has an idea of when each deliverable is expected.

Tips for Producing a Project Roadmap

1. using project roadmap tools.

In creating and managing your project roadmap, you want to make use of project management software. These are usually project management tools that offer dedicated options for creating roadmaps.

Project management software is preferred because they allow you to create and modify your project roadmaps with relative ease. Some offer you templates to easily and quickly visualize your roadmaps, and you also have access to updated data from your project management activities through real-time, up-to-date reporting.

2. Creating The Roadmap Before The Project Plan

A project roadmap helps you lay down a framework for the project plan. With a project roadmap already in place, you know all important aspects of the project, create a high-level view of them, and then create a visual plan that goes into more detail.

This is especially useful considering a project roadmap covers virtually every part of your project, including portfolio management and even risks within the project. From there, you see that creating a project roadmap first makes the activities involved in creating the product roadmap less tedious .

3. Ensuring the Roadmap Is Always Up To Date

You want your project roadmap to serve all its purpose in your project development journey; communication, coordination, and alignment. Having your product roadmap not represent the current state of your project strategy does not help you achieve this.

Whether you make use of project management software or not, you want to ensure that every change to your project timeline and strategy is appropriately represented on the roadmap as quickly as possible. This ensures everyone has the right information to work with and everyone’s work on the project is coordinated and aimed towards the same outcome.

Using project management software makes this a whole lot easier to maintain.

4. Including Contacts In Project Roadmaps

Key contacts are not elements you see in every project roadmap, nonetheless, they prove important for your project communication.

Within your project roadmap, although internal stakeholders are important, you want to especially include contact information of external stakeholders and contractors relevant to the project. You create a means for communication so your team members easily reach out to them in case they have any inquiries.

5. Including Only Relevant Information

Details included in your product roadmaps need to be very precise and comprehensive for their intended audience. Some are only intended to present a strategic overview of the project timeline, so you do not want to overwhelm your senior executives.

Others, like the activities roadmap, are intended to present the development team with details of each deliverable and milestone, so you want them to have all the data they need. The bottom line is that you ensure you don’t go overboard or underwhelm your project roadmap audience with details contained in it.

Some other tips that help you include making use of a project roadmap, instead of a more detailed plan, to kick off your project. This way, you do not waste time getting everyone on the same page with important project elements. You also want to ensure the goals included in it are achievable within the proposed timeline to avoid unnecessary delays and enjoy better resource management.

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Anastasia belyh.

Anastasia has been a professional blogger and researcher since 2014. She loves to perform in-depth software reviews to help software buyers make informed decisions when choosing project management software, CRM tools, website builders, and everything around growing a startup business.

Anastasia worked in management consulting and tech startups, so she has lots of experience in helping professionals choosing the right business software.

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• What is an agile roadmap?

An agile roadmap is a lightweight strategic planning tool. It outlines general time frames for major themes of work — what you plan to deliver and when. It is informed by high-level strategy , oriented around business value, and provides transparency for stakeholders and teammates. Unlike a backlog (which is a catch-all list of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes), an agile roadmap captures how you will ship a holistic customer experience .

Build an agile roadmap in Aha! Roadmaps. Start a free trial .

Wait a minute, you might be thinking. Isn't agile fundamentally incompatible with roadmapping ? How can agile teams use a tool that forces rigidity, fixed dates, and delivery commitments that are bound to be broken? Well, the reality is that roadmaps complement — rather than conflict with — a fast and iterative workflow. Plenty of agile teams rely on roadmaps to align everyone around what you are planning to deliver, when, and why it matters to customers and the business.

Simply put, the idea that an agile mindset eschews long-term planning is outdated and misinformed. Of course, for new product development teams, a propensity for speed is essential. But it can also create whiplash. When upfront planning is ignored, the horizon lines shift constantly. Lacking clarity about what the team is working on or prioritizing, others can be left wondering what is happening and when.

This guide includes definitional guidance and best practices to help you learn how to build agile roadmaps . The details will depend on your company, market, product, and planning process. But fundamental roadmap methods can be used by agile teams of all sizes to drive more value, faster.

Jump ahead here:

When to use agile roadmaps

What does an agile roadmap look like?

How to create an agile roadmap, epics roadmap template for agile teams, when to use agile roadmaps.

Agile roadmaps are most useful when you are working on something new. You need to have a plan for the why, the what, and the how of what your team will build. This could be the release of a new version of an application, a new feature set, or an entirely new product .

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• What is agile product management?
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How a product manager builds an agile roadmap greatly impacts the success of any new launch. Executives, cross-functional teammates, partners, and customers all want to know when to expect new functionality. Sharing an accurate and visually compelling roadmap can help foster transparency and rally everyone around what you want to achieve.

The visual presentation of your roadmap will depend on your company — both in terms of planning and aesthetic. For example, a startup working to deliver a new product to market will have an agile roadmap that looks very different from a larger enterprise.

In a startup, you may have just a few folks creating and referencing an agile roadmap. This team could include founders, the product manager , and the engineering lead . Teams in this environment are typically focused on delivering disruptive functionality as quickly as possible. It is common to see broad, theme-based agile roadmaps that might be shared with investors. Once the team starts building, they may rely more heavily on a time-based roadmap with very short release cycles, so plans can be adjusted quickly based on feedback.

In larger companies, you are always working to maintain and invest in what you already delivered to customers. So you may see a longer-term product roadmap that captures how existing offerings will evolve over an extended period of time — alongside an agile roadmap for new product development. Since new products do not yet have related maintenance work, the focus is on innovation . These enterprise-level agile roadmaps will likely still have longer time horizons than a startup.

You may see releases, epics, and sprints displayed on an agile roadmap. It is unusual to see individual features bubble up, but it could happen with startups, where the features effectively are the product. Below are a few examples of agile roadmaps. The different types may be used at specific phases of product development or concurrently.

Theme-based agile roadmap This type of roadmap groups planned work by theme . Those themes could be based on strategic goals or product features. The roadmap below shows three business goals on the left with major development efforts visualized as bars within swimlanes.

Custom roadmap created in Aha! Roadmaps

Time-based agile roadmap This type of roadmap shows areas of work as swimlanes within a date range. The range can be as general as needed — from quarters to months to weeks. The roadmap below shows a few months worth of product development. Purple containers represent epics , with individual features shown as blue bars.

Starter roadmap created in Aha! Roadmaps

Progress-based agile roadmap This type of roadmap displays work based on status. Commonly used by teams who use kanban , categories might include "now, next, later" or "planned, in progress, done." The roadmap below groups features by progress within releases. The releases include a percent complete which is calculated from the completion rate of the features within it. Here, feature statuses reflect the team's unique workflow.

This features roadmap was created in Aha! Roadmaps .

Most product teams already have established workflows for adding bug fixes and general improvements to sprints . So you do not need to include ongoing development on your roadmap. Instead, you want to capture a mix of shorter-term efforts that support the longer-term goals.

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How to report on progress against your product roadmap

Here are some best practices for building an agile roadmap:

Focus on goals and outcomes Strategy is the backbone of an agile roadmap. Put it at the forefront of your roadmap. What do you want to achieve and why? What impact will your plans have on the overall business?

Prepare a coherent story Keep it simple. Only include features that will support your strategic vision and are well-thought-out. The plan should unfold naturally in a way that anyone can understand.

Secure stakeholder buy-in Before you begin working against or circulating your roadmap, obtain strong buy-in from stakeholders. You need their support to gain traction and secure resources.

Make it measurable What gets measured gets built. Be ready to share progress and impact with different groups. Remember that future investment in your product is dependent on how today’s plan matures.

Know when to show dates Due dates can be triggering for agile teams. But you are the one in control. Understand the difference between internal and external dates. An approximate date range might be all you need for certain audiences.

Review and adjust regularly As you progress and new information emerges, evaluate and update your roadmap when necessary. For most teams, a quarterly cadence will work. You might need more or less time, but be sure to set regular checkpoints.

Most people want to know the best ways to establish a process for roadmapping . From storyboarding to impact mapping and poker planning , much of your agile roadmap process relies on how your organization approaches planning.

In general, a good agile roadmap should be easy to manage and update. That is why static spreadsheets are impossible for any forward-thinking team. You do not want to spend your time on version control — you want to keep building. Purpose-built roadmapping and agile development software gives agile teams the flexibility to set plans and shift in real time.

If you want to get started quickly, this epics roadmap template in Aha! Knowledge offers a lightweight format for organizing and communicating upcoming agile work.

Start using this template now

Unify your product and engineering teams with the right tools. Aha! Roadmaps and seamlessly integrates with Aha! Develop — try both free for 30 days .

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What the New Overtime Rule Means for Workers

One of the basic principles of the American workplace is that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. Simply put, every worker’s time has value. A cornerstone of that promise is the  Fair Labor Standards Act ’s (FLSA) requirement that when most workers work more than 40 hours in a week, they get paid more. The  Department of Labor ’s new overtime regulation is restoring and extending this promise for millions more lower-paid salaried workers in the U.S.

Overtime protections have been a critical part of the FLSA since 1938 and were established to protect workers from exploitation and to benefit workers, their families and our communities. Strong overtime protections help build America’s middle class and ensure that workers are not overworked and underpaid.

Some workers are specifically exempt from the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime protections, including bona fide executive, administrative or professional employees. This exemption, typically referred to as the “EAP” exemption, applies when: 

1. An employee is paid a salary,  

2. The salary is not less than a minimum salary threshold amount, and 

3. The employee primarily performs executive, administrative or professional duties.

While the department increased the minimum salary required for the EAP exemption from overtime pay every 5 to 9 years between 1938 and 1975, long periods between increases to the salary requirement after 1975 have caused an erosion of the real value of the salary threshold, lessening its effectiveness in helping to identify exempt EAP employees.

The department’s new overtime rule was developed based on almost 30 listening sessions across the country and the final rule was issued after reviewing over 33,000 written comments. We heard from a wide variety of members of the public who shared valuable insights to help us develop this Administration’s overtime rule, including from workers who told us: “I would love the opportunity to...be compensated for time worked beyond 40 hours, or alternately be given a raise,” and “I make around $40,000 a year and most week[s] work well over 40 hours (likely in the 45-50 range). This rule change would benefit me greatly and ensure that my time is paid for!” and “Please, I would love to be paid for the extra hours I work!”

The department’s final rule, which will go into effect on July 1, 2024, will increase the standard salary level that helps define and delimit which salaried workers are entitled to overtime pay protections under the FLSA. 

Starting July 1, most salaried workers who earn less than $844 per week will become eligible for overtime pay under the final rule. And on Jan. 1, 2025, most salaried workers who make less than $1,128 per week will become eligible for overtime pay. As these changes occur, job duties will continue to determine overtime exemption status for most salaried employees.

The rule will also increase the total annual compensation requirement for highly compensated employees (who are not entitled to overtime pay under the FLSA if certain requirements are met) from $107,432 per year to $132,964 per year on July 1, 2024, and then set it equal to $151,164 per year on Jan. 1, 2025.

Starting July 1, 2027, these earnings thresholds will be updated every three years so they keep pace with changes in worker salaries, ensuring that employers can adapt more easily because they’ll know when salary updates will happen and how they’ll be calculated.

The final rule will restore and extend the right to overtime pay to many salaried workers, including workers who historically were entitled to overtime pay under the FLSA because of their lower pay or the type of work they performed. 

We urge workers and employers to visit  our website to learn more about the final rule.

Jessica Looman is the administrator for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. Follow the Wage and Hour Division on Twitter at  @WHD_DOL  and  LinkedIn .  Editor's note: This blog was edited to correct a typo (changing "administrator" to "administrative.")

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PFAS Enforcement Discretion and Settlement Policy Under CERCLA

Memorandum provides direction about how the EPA will exercise its enforcement discretion under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) in matters involving per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The memorandum describes how EPA will focus on holding responsible entities who significantly contributed to the release of PFAS contamination into the environment, including parties that have manufactured PFAS or used PFAS in the manufacturing process, federal facilities, and other industrial parties.

The policy also reflects that EPA does not intend to pursue entities where equitable factors do not support seeking response actions or costs under CERCLA, including farmers, municipal landfills, water utilities, municipal airports, and local fire departments. Issued: April 19, 2024

PFAS Enforcement Discretion Settlement Policy Under CERCLA (pdf) (372.5 KB, 4/19/2024)

On April 19, 2024, the EPA announced that it was designating two types of PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), as CERCLA hazardous substances. Information regarding the rulemaking is available from the Agency's  Designation of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctanesulfonic Acid (PFOS) as CERCLA Hazardous Substances web page. 

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TSMC’s shrinking silicon roadmap could mean big things for your Apple devices

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) just held its 2024 North America Technology Symposium, where it filled in attendees and investors on its technology roadmap for the future.

You may rightly ask: okay but what does this have to do with me, a user of Apple products? Well, TSMC is a chip fabrication company, and likely the most advanced one in the world. They’ve been Apple’s partner for nearly all of its chips major chips—the A series for iPhones and iPads, the M series for Macs, and more. And Apple is often first in line for new manufacturing processes from TSMC, paying a premium to be the first customer to get to use 5nm or 3nm technologies, for example.

Here’s a summary of the TSMC roadmap and what it might mean for future Apple silicon, and therefore future iPhones, iPads, Macs, and more.

What’s a nanometer?

Before we talk about TSMC’s future technologies, let’s have a quick reminder on what a “nanometer” is in this context. Technically, it’s one billionth of a meter. A human hair is between 50,000 and 100,000nm thick. Most bacteria are between 1,000 and 10,000 nanometers.

In silicon process technology, the “nanometer” measurement is how big some of the features of the chip are. Different companies measure different features–it used to be the length between the source and drain parts of a field-effect transistor (FET), but these days different parts are measured by different companies.

The A17 Pro chip was Apple’s first 3nm processor, followed by the M3.

In other words, 5nm means some specific parts of the chip are only 5 nanometers big, but TSMC’s 5nm is not the same as Intel’s 5nm, is not the same as Samsung’s 5nm, and so on. A smaller nanometer number means you can fit more chip logic or cache or whatever in the same amount of space, which can lead to more powerful chips, lower power consumption, smaller chips that fit into smaller devices, and so on.

Think of it a bit like looking at a city in Apple Maps–zooming out makes everything smaller, putting more buildings, streets, and land on the same amount of screen. That’s what moving to a smaller nanometer process is like more “city” in the same space.

There are many other important aspects of a microprocessor, including the way transistors are insulated, materials used, and so much more, but the “nanometer” measurement has stuck as a way of differentiating one major manufacturing generation from another.

3nm progress

Apple was first with TSMC’s initial 3nm process, which was called N3. The company has now refined that with the N3E process, which is what we think Apple will use in its most advanced products this fall ( A18 and M4 ). While it might seem significant, the main focus of N3E is to make the chips more affordable. There are some slight differences in density and performance but it’s not a major generational change.

2nm coming next year

The next major change is the shift to 2nm, which is expected to happen in 2025. Apple is once again expected to be the first major (and possibly only) customer, so it’s possible that the A19 or other chips (maybe an M5?) that ship in late 2025 will use this process. It all comes down to TSMC’s ability to work out the kinks in manufacturing and yields and such in time to produce tens of millions of chips with it.

Compared to the N3E process, the N2 process is expected to reduce power consumption by 25-30 percent (for a chip of the same complexity and frequency) or to improve performance by 10-15 percent at the same power consumption. Chip density (how much stuff fits into a single area) is expected to increase by 15 percent.

An interesting change to this generation of chips, besides simply being smaller/denser/faster, is something TSMC calls “NanoFlex.” It will allow chip designers to use cells from different chip libraries all on the same wafer. Usually, a chip designer has to use all blocks from a “low power,” “high density,” or “high performance” library, depending on the most important needs of the chip. By letting designs use different parts from different libraries, chips can fine-tune different areas to their needs.

For example, Apple could decide it is most important to make the video and audio encoders and decoders part of the chip as small as possible and lay out that part of the chip using the high-density design libraries while using the energy-efficient libraries for the low-power CPU cores and the high-performance libraries for the performance CPU cores.

For the chips Apple produces, the limiting factor tends to be power and thermal dissipation. So you can probably expect chips made with the N2 process to have more “stuff” in them (cores, cache, bigger and more complex video encoders, etc) to the tune of 15-20 percent, with slightly higher clock speeds and therefore performance, compared to chips from the year before. However, the ability to optimize specific parts of the chip with tools from different chip libraries has the potential to pay off big in terms of higher “peak” performance or lower idle power.

The year after N2 is released, TSMC will have two enhanced versions of the process: N2P which is focused on top performance, and N2X focused on lower voltages and power consumption. It’s unclear whether Apple will adopt one of those for the chips that come in 2026.

A16—we’re doing angstroms now?

The major shift after 2nm (N2) is a process TSMC calls A16 (no relation to the A16 Bionic). It’s a 1.6-nanometer process but now that things are getting so small, they’re sort of getting off “nanometers” and switching to “angstroms.” An angstrom is a ten-billionth of a meter, or 10 times smaller than a nanometer.

This one is not coming until late 2026, almost certainly too late for Apple to use that year. We’ll see chips made with the A16 process from Apple in 2027, most likely.

TSMC gave some early estimates compared to the coming N2P process, where A16 is expected to improve performance by 8-10 percent at the same voltage and complexity or reduce power by 15-20 percent at the same frequency and transistor count.

The big innovation in the A16 generation will be backside power delivery, something TSMC calls “Super Power Rail.” This runs a network for power distribution on the back side of the silicon wafer, connected to the transistors through little tunnels through it. This improves density and potentially reliability, as power doesn’t have to be routed around with all the signal and clock distribution lines on the top side of the chip. Other chip manufacturers are pursuing similar technologies (Intel’s PowerVia comes to mind)—basically different approaches to the same idea.

TSMC may be a little later than competitors like Intel with this kind of technology, as it has been pushed back a little. It was originally expected to debut in the N2P process, and now will be first introduced in A16 instead.

Chips in Apple products that use the A16 process will be able to have even more stuff (more cores, bigger caches) than the N2 process while maintaining the same power profile.

Having chips with more density or a better power profile earlier than others is one of Apple’s big advantages, but the real magic comes from excellent chip design and software development that optimizes Apple’s software specifically for the chips they produce.

Author: Jason Cross , Senior Editor

I have written about technology for my entire professional life - over 25 years. I enjoy learning about how complicated technology works and explaining it in a way anyone can understand.

Recent stories by Jason Cross:

• Macworld Podcast: Apple to ‘Let Loose’ on May 7; touch-sensitive iPhone 16 buttons; is FineWoven finished? and more
• Forget the iPhone 16, Apple’s most critical 2024 product is for older iPhones too
• How the iPhone’s A18 Pro chip will supercharge Apple’s AI revolution