Developing and managing a successful product or project happens to go hand in hand with the more complex process of managing a whole series of products or projects. And for that, we use roadmaps.
First things first, what is a project roadmap?
A project roadmap is basically a high-level overview of important project deliverables, dependencies, possible risks, and key players. It’s usually put together by the project manager who uses it as a communication tool and reference throughout a project’s lifecycle to stay on track with goals. Moreover, it’s a highly visual document.
Types of project roadmaps
Project roadmaps can be used for pretty much any project, and can take the form of marketing plans, IT and business development strategies, as well as sales, technology and project portfolio management.
How is a project roadmap different from a project plan?
Well, the main difference is that a roadmap is a high-level view of your project while a good project plan gets into detail about what needs to happen to ensure success. With project plans, you’re answering questions related to value proposition, your project scope and how it’s being managed, the budget and the risks; not to mention client names, training, schedules and so on. Put simply, a project plan is a microscopic view of a project roadmap.
The benefits of using project roadmaps
There are countless benefits to having a strong project roadmap, but let's keep it simple.
- Everyone on the team follows a set plan, with clear understanding of the timeline, scope and goals of the project.
- Project managers are able to communicate the plans to anyone related to the project all the while managing expectations.
- The process of prioritizing tasks and making decisions becomes easier, of course as long as your roadmap is regularly updated.
The challenges of using project roadmaps
Using a project roadmap does have its challenges of course.
- At times, it might lack realism and cost you delay or overruns.
- You’re bound to be late if you don't constantly update the project roadmap.
- You might find difficulty managing your roadmap during shorter iterations if you go too much into detail.
The difference between project, product and portfolio roadmaps
How can I differentiate between a project roadmap and a product roadmap?
A product roadmap is a strategic vision of the path a specific product is going to take (it could be software, hardware, anything really). Both project and product roadmaps look ahead, by visualizing a story and encouraging feedback. The main difference is that product roadmaps are much more detailed than project roadmaps; they include requirements and are specific to development projects, while project roadmaps can be used to manage any kind of project work.
High-level features of a project roadmap
To build an effective project roadmap, project managers should focus on the high-level details.
- The roadmap should be short (one page) and highly visual.
- The roadmap should feature a good overview of the timeline without too much detail; it should take into account hard deadlines and a list of specific goals and priorities.
- It should also feature key milestones that highlight important dates, dependencies at the high level, resource allocation, and key contacts of the people involved in the project.
Features of a product roadmap
A product roadmap features both the strategy and the goals of a product.
- Product vision, i.e. what you want your product to be in the future.
- Strategy with a plan that showcases what you’re going to do to meet the vision.
- Goal that is time-bound and measurable via a specific metric.
- Initiative that unites the features to be implemented.
- Features that are actual pieces of the product.
- Dates and time periods for specific goals or features (approximation).
- Statuses which track work progress.
- Metrics such as churn rate and organic traffic.
What is the difference between a project roadmap and a portfolio roadmap?
A portfolio roadmap is also a high-level overview, but it tends to relate directly to the product line strategy. Portfolio roadmaps allow product managers and executives to communicate how products are connected to each other which means they’re more effective for businesses with multiple product lines. Portfolio roadmaps help visualize the relationship between various timelines and objectives in many areas of your business.
When we say portfolio roadmap, we’re talking visibility across projects, teams and departments.
A list of project, product and portfolio roadmap apps that integrate with Jira
First of all, why Jira
Jira Software is kind of the number one software development tool used by agile teams, and it's also the one we work with at Jexo. And while Jira is a very powerful tool to track work, it's not always ideal for planning across multiple teams or projects.
That being said, here's a list of project and product management apps that feature roadmaps which integrate well with Jira; some are Jira plugins, others are standalone apps.
Let’s start with Jira plugins that offer interesting roadmaps
Jira plugins are pieces of software that plug into your Jira task management platform, offering you better functionality. Being part of the Atlassian ecosystem has its perks, one of which is abiding by a set of security guidelines that make the apps more trustworthy.
Swanly is a Jira project management plugin with a portfolio roadmap that offers managers a hub from which they can plan and track work progress in Jira, coordinate across multiple projects, products and teams, access a list view of activities, and understand the scope and history of all issues and releases.
Price
Free for up to 10 users
$1.5 for 11-100 users
Market
Atlassian Cloud
Technical clients with complex PPM projects tend to opt for BigPicture, as it allows them to build any portfolio structure they want, including sub-portfolios, programs, projects, stages, SAFe® ARTs, and so on.
Price
Free for up to 10 users
$3 for 11-100 users
Market
Atlassian Server, Cloud, DC
This Jira plugin is a visual project roadmap timeline that offers swimlanes to split scheduled work, with date markers showcasing events and milestones. You can drag and drop scheduled issues onto the timeline, filter your view, and export to PDF.
Price
Free for up to 10 users
$1.75 for 11-100 users
Market
Atlassian Server, Cloud, DC
Release Management and Roadmap
Release Management & Roadmap is a technical project management tool dedicated to release management specifically. It offers various features, of which a release roadmap that allows you to update start and release dates via drag-and-drop, and the option to search by item name or version.
Price
Free for up to 10 users
$0.9 for 11-100 users
Market
Atlassian Cloud, Server
The Project Timeline plugin features a roadmap with an overall picture of scheduled releases, epics, and sprints across multiple projects on a timeline where you can plan and track.
Price
$10 for 10 users
$1.25 for 11-100 users
Market
Atlassian Server, Cloud
Advanced Roadmaps is made by Atlassian, part of Jira Premium; their roadmap allows you to view, plan and manage initiatives, create realistic schedules, and manage releases in an ever-changing environment.
Price
Available as part of Jira Cloud Premium - 14.5$ per user
Market
Atlassian Cloud, DC, Server
Standalone project and product management apps that feature useful roadmaps
Aha! is a product roadmap made by product managers for product managers, mostly in software, web, and tech companies, and covering the why, what, and when of your product development. Aha! also offers a portfolio roadmap view of your work.
Price
$74 per user, per month for small teams
Asana is a product roadmap tool that helps teams orchestrate their work, from daily tasks to strategic initiatives. It features lists, boards, calendars and gantt charts to help organize the work in one place.
Price
$11.59 per user per month for premium
$25.69 per user per month for business
Roadmunk makes visualizing roadmaps easier with features such as a timeline and swimlane view (for agile teams). Their roadmaps can be used for various cases and allow you to import, drag and drop, as well as attach files.
Price
$49 per user, per month for small teams
Monday is a product management software that helps customize your product roadmap with pre-set templates featuring dashboards, timelines and many view options.
Price
$11 per user, per month for standard
$18 per user, per month for pro
Whether you follow a traditional waterfall process or an agile framework, Wrike will help you manage product requirements from concept to completion, by creating, prioritizing and assigning requirements or user stories.
Price
Free with limited features
$9.8 per user per month for Proffesional plan
$24.8 per user per month for Business plan
Craft brings product features, milestones, epics, and user stories together into one product roadmap you can share with the management team. It also allows you to prioritize tasks and assign them to the team.
Price
$49 per user, per month for essential
$109 per user, per month for pro
GanttPRO is a tool for building product roadmaps online and it's based on Gantt charts. It’s fairly simple to use and features tasks, costs, resources, deadlines, team collaboration, workload, templates and so on.
Price
$8.9 per user, per month for teams
$15 per month for the Individual plan
ClickUp offers a simple way to organize your work by creating tasks, organizing them in a tree hierarchy and assigning them to employees. You can view tasks in a list, box or board view and assign comments.
Price
Free plan with limited features
$9 per user, per month
ProjectManager.com is a project management app that features time-tracking and collaboration tools for managers and their teams. It offers visibility into product roadmaps, and the ability to update timesheets and tasks anytime, anywhere.
Price
Free plan with limited features
$14 per user, per month for team
$25 per user, per month for business
Zoho Sprints is a tool for product management teams, helping scrum teams plan and track the progress of their sprints; workflows are customizable.
Price
$12 per month for up to 12 users
$4.5 per user, per month for 12-100 users
With its customizable boards, Productboard offers product teams flexibility and the ability to understand what users need, what priorities to focus on, and how to bring together everyone around the roadmap.
Price
$25 per user, per month for Essentials
$70 per user, per month for Pro
ProductPlan does one thing very well, which is help create roadmaps for your next project. You can lay out your product strategy in a big picture format while allowing your development team to work on the little details.
Price
$49 per user, per month for basic
Custom pricing for enterprise
For many managers, a roadmap often serves as their primary tool to plan, track, share and update the work. Given how central it is, choosing the right roadmap can have quite the impact so choose wisely. 🤓