CONFLUENCE ROADMAP PLANNER FREE

The structure of a roadmap may vary from one project to another, but there are some key elements you should include in all your roadmaps. Report progress and status as the project is moving along. Prioritize new functionalities and enhancements. Translate product goals and initiatives into features and requirements.Ĭommunicate with leadership, cross-functional teammates, and customers.

Illustrate how business strategy ties to company goals. Serving as the reference point for everything a team will focus on, a visual roadmap is extremely useful for product/project managers in high-level meetings with clients and executives because it helps you:

It shares general plans with external audiences such as partners and advisory boards. It links department goals to those of the business.

It communicates company-wide initiatives to internal teams. Showing the why behind a planned initiative, a roadmap benefits any type of business because: Prioritization – focusing on what is most important, roadmaps help project/product managers make tradeoff decisions and prioritize the work that brings the greatest benefits more easily. Impact – highlighting how each area of investment ties to a high-level goal, roadmaps easily illustrate the impact of a team’s progress. Aligning each work item to the overall objective, roadmaps ensure that time and efforts are invested wisely and provide a strong foundation in terms of:Ĭlarity – by answering the question “what are you working towards and why?”, a roadmap clarifies strategic goals and how the involved work is linked to the overall strategy.Ĭommunication – sharing the strategy of an initiative, a roadmap shows direction, visualizes timing, and helps drive conversations with key parties around challenges in a transparent manner.Ĭoordination – in large or complex projects, a roadmap enhances collaboration between multiple participants within an organization as it can help track dependencies and identify bottlenecks.Īccountability – sharing what needs to be delivered and when, a roadmap makes it easier for everyone to follow through on the plan.Īlignment – clearly stating the vision and the objectives of a project, a roadmap aligns teams, portfolios, or areas of the same business. To better understand the role of a roadmap, let us review what this strategic tool is and is not.ĭifference between a roadmap and a backlog – a backlog is a to-do list consisting of all the tasks required to carry out a strategic initiative, usually arranged based on their priority meanwhile, a roadmap translates a collection of backlog tasks and ideas into a high-level strategic vision.ĭifference between a roadmap and a project management tracker – a project management tracker is a compilation of all the tasks and associated details (the individual assignments, the staff responsible for each task, planned meetings to discuss major milestones, deadlines for each critical phase, etc.) that are related to the completion of an initiative in contrast, a roadmap summarizes the main efforts that need to be undertaken in order to achieve the planned results.ĭifference between a roadmap and a list of features – when it comes to product development and management, many managers mistakenly confuse a list of features with a roadmap, but a list of features doesn’t articulate the strategic thinking that supports building a product in a specific way, whereas a roadmap shows how all those features come together and yield a product that meets specific company goals.Ĭreating a well-thought-out roadmap helps businesses and project/product managers judiciously decide to what they choose to commit. You should always remember that a roadmap planner differs from a regular project plan in that it doesn't contain all the details of a project instead, it's a high-level, easy-to-understand, strategic tool.ĭefining an overall goal along with the major steps needed to reach it, a roadmap helps articulate the why behind the desired outcome and the plan for getting there within all kinds of strategic initiatives. Simply put, a roadmap is a strategic planning technique that places a project's goals and major deliverables (tasks, milestones) on a timeline, all grouped in a single visual representation or graphic.

CONFLUENCE ROADMAP PLANNER FREE

Here, you'll find all you need to know, from what a roadmap is to useful examples, friendly tools and free roadmap templates so you don't have to build them yourself. We've put together some resources to make it easier for you to create and manage your project or product roadmap. A simple visual like a roadmap provides a clear overview of your strategic tasks and milestones and helps you define a long-term plan for reaching your goals. Strategic planning is an essential part of managing projects or activities of any kind, and it's especially important in implementing your business vision.

Confluence roadmap planner