What Is a Roadmap in Project Management?
What Is a Roadmap in Project Management?
Project management can be a challenging process, particularly when it comes to prioritizing tasks to meet the goals of the project. That’s why it’s essential to have the right tools and techniques to help you stay organized and focused.
One of the most valuable tools in a project manager’s arsenal is a roadmap.
A project roadmap is a graphical, high-level overview of the project’s goals and deliverables presented on a timeline.
In this article, we'll explore the elements of a roadmap, how it can benefit your team, and how to create an effective roadmap for your next project. We'll also answer some common questions about roadmaps and provide tips and best practices to help you get the most out of this essential project management tool.
Elements of a roadmap
Unlike the project plan, where details are fleshed out, the roadmap should be simple and free of minutiae. The project roadmap is a useful tool for managing stakeholder expectations, as well as for communicating plans and coordinating resources with other teams.
A project roadmap should contain the following:
- Project goals and objectives
- A timeline indicating the schedule
- Important milestones and deliverables
- Possible risks
- Dependencies
A Gantt chart can help you get a visual overview of your project roadmap. It displays the project and all tasks and dependencies on an interactive and dynamic timeline. You can focus on one phase or view the entire project.
Why do you need a project roadmap?
When you start a project, chances are that you have many variables to keep track of. How do you manage all the content? How is the work divided between your team members? More importantly, how do you keep track of the many tasks, ideas, and resources without getting bogged down by the details?
A roadmap provides a bird’s eye view of the project without getting into tiny details. This makes it an important tool for project managers tasked with keeping the stakeholders informed of a project's scope and progress.
In essence, a project roadmap is useful for anyone who requires a macro-level view of the project. It is an important tool of project management as it also aids in the development of a more comprehensive project plan.
How can a project roadmap help you?
Here are some of the ways a project roadmap can help your project management:
Communicate goals to your team
A project roadmap is a highly visual document that clearly outlines the goals and objectives of your project. Once your team understands its objectives, it makes it easier for them to focus on specific tasks.
It also gives an overview of the project, which can help you and your team estimate the time required to complete each stage of the project. Additionally, it reminds your staff of the project’s baseline so they do not get side-tracked during the execution stage.
Recognize priority tasks
A project management roadmap can help you identify the stages of your project that demand the most attention. It can also provide an estimated overview of the complexity and effort involved. Usually, further development of these stages leads to product maps.
Product roadmaps are similar to project roadmaps, except that they provide an overview of a particular product’s vision and life cycle.
Communication with stakeholders
A project management survey conducted by KPMG stated that only one in three organizations develop projects that are likely to satisfy their stakeholders.
This dissatisfaction is due to stakeholders’ expectations for teams to accommodate minor changes during the execution process. Consequently, this causes projects to deviate from their original goals, which leads to productivity loss.
A project management roadmap helps avoid miscommunication between stakeholders and your team by ensuring everyone stays on the same track. It can also clarify to stakeholders the steps that were taken during the execution of the project.
Looking to visualize and manage your project with all the crucial elements?
Tips for producing a project roadmap
A project management roadmap helps you streamline your work process. But to get the most out of a robust roadmap tool, here are a few tips you can follow:
- Your project roadmap should have clear and precise information to assist in decision-making
- Your project roadmap should also outline realistic goals because hard, unachievable deadlines can add to cost overruns and delay the project
- Your team should update each other about the progress of the work to maintain the integrity of the project roadmap
- Make sure to highlight contacts of the stakeholders and people responsible for the project, so it becomes easier to reach them
Challenges of a project roadmap
Despite its benefits, a project roadmap comes with its own set of challenges.
- Your roadmap should only provide an overview of the project and avoid details that can be difficult to understand at a glance
- Teams often focus heavily on the research and execution of the project in the roadmap and neglect testing and feedback
- A project roadmap is more likely to be successful when your entire team and stakeholders agree with it
Create a powerful roadmap with Wrike
If you are looking to kick-start your roadmap creation, Wrike has the solution for you. Follow our step-by-step product roadmap template guide to create your own template, so you can prioritize tasks, coordinate activities across teams, and track progress.
As you create your own roadmap in Wrike, you have the freedom to add custom fields according to your needs. By using the Gantt chart view to visualize your roadmap, you can also highlight important milestones and easily make changes to project due dates.
Unlock the potential for success by creating your product roadmap with Wrike — start your free trial today.