What to include on your product roadmap
Last updated: April 2024
A product roadmap visualizes the plan for how your product is going to meet a set of business objectives. It details the direction of your product and the work required to get there.
Product managers can use a roadmap to communicate product direction and progress to internal teams and external stakeholders. Roadmaps also allow product teams to assess new requests for functionality against planned work. Your roadmap is your best path forward.
A product roadmap should also showcase how high-level initiatives and planned work align with company and product strategy. It is an evolving document and should be separate from other planning artifacts, such as a collection of customer ideas and feature requests, a backlog of future work, or bug reports.
Jump ahead to any of the sections below:
Build a product roadmap — try Aha! Roadmaps for free.
Editor's note: Although the video below still shows core functionality within Aha! software, some of the interface might be out of date. View our knowledge base for the most updated insights into Aha! software.
Related:
What are different types of product roadmaps?
You may create different roadmap versions depending on your audience or based on information you want to specifically highlight. A few examples of visual product roadmaps you can build in Aha! Roadmaps are listed below:
Portfolio roadmap
A portfolio roadmap is perfect for displaying your planned releases for multiple products in a singular view. You can use a portfolio roadmap when you need to provide a strategic overview to your executive team or advisory boards. It also helps your internal teams acknowledge how specific projects relate to one another.
This portfolio roadmap shows planned work throughout the Fredwin Software portfolio.
Strategy roadmap
A strategy roadmap represents your strategic product initiatives. This is great for displaying the high-level efforts you need to complete to achieve your goals. It is an ideal view for executives and other stakeholders. It can also be useful to help internal teams understand how releases contribute to overall business strategy.
A strategy roadmap gives a high-level view of progress towards goals.
Releases roadmap
A releases roadmap is used to plan product releases. It is a good view for displaying key activities, such as phases and tasks that need to happen to bring your release to market. This roadmap is also great for communicating the delivery of critical features. Use a releases roadmap when you need to coordinate release activities with other teams, such as marketing, sales, and support.
A releases roadmap aligns everyone around what is coming, what needs to be done, and when.
Features roadmap
A features roadmap shows the timeline for delivering new features.. You can use a features roadmap when you need to provide details about what is coming relatively soon to customers or internal teams. For organizations that follow a continuous deployment approach, features roadmaps are helpful for communicating near-term product plans.
A features roadmap displays the features or user stories that will be completed in the coming months.
Every product team is different. So find the roadmap view that works best for your product, team, and process. And remember that brilliant roadmapping begins with a strategic plan.
