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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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• Product management
• Collections: Product roadmap presentation

8 Product roadmap presentation templates

The best presenters tell a compelling story. They lead audiences through a clear, logical explanation of concepts and bring data to life by connecting it to real-world use cases and examples. Roadmap presentations are the perfect opportunity to share what is coming next for your product in an engaging and memorable way. After all, you have an invested audience and you get to share where your product is headed — the inspiration for new features and updates, what your engineering team will get to build next, and how this work will bring value to the business and customers alike.

Build a roadmap presentation in Aha! Roadmaps — free for 30 days .

This guide will walk you through how to create your own winning roadmap presentation so you can clearly communicate the why, what, and when of upcoming product work. You can even kickstart your presentation prep by downloading a roadmap presentation template configured for one of seven different audiences. Whether you are presenting to executives or customers, the tips in this guide will get you started on the right track.

Jump ahead to any section:

What is a product roadmap presentation?

How do product managers use product roadmap presentations, what are the elements of a product roadmap presentation, roadmap presentation templates, tools to build roadmap presentations.

Building and presenting a product roadmap is an essential part of a product manager’s job. A product roadmap presentation informs stakeholders inside and outside the company where the product is headed and how you will get there. It is your opportunity to share product plans and explain how core initiatives and features map to the company’s strategy . Most importantly, you will show how the updates you are planning will delight customers and further differentiate the product.

Of course, before you put together a roadmap presentation, you must first build your roadmap. You can choose a robust roadmapping tool like Aha! Roadmaps or use a lighter weight solution such as Aha! Knowledge .

Try a lightweight roadmap in Aha! Knowledge. Sign up for a free trial .

Start using this template now

Product managers use roadmap presentations to communicate with a range of audiences — from executives to customers to engineering teams . Your presentation can be tailored to deliver different messages to your various audiences depending on the information you cover.

For example, you might use the presentation to show company leaders how major product themes or initiatives roll up into company-wide strategic efforts. Or you might want to show customers and partners what to look for in the next release. Internally you might need to highlight the timing of important customer needs and feature requests to engineering teams.

But roadmap presentations are about more than just timelines and features. They facilitate opportunities to open up dialogue, answer questions about product direction, and listen to feedback. You need to go beyond giving product updates — demonstrating why the updates matter and how they will make a real difference for your customers.

You can create presentations in Aha! Roadmaps. Pull in live views and your data will stay up-to-date.

The best product roadmap presentations are designed to both communicate and persuade. Here are some essential elements to include and plan for in any product roadmap presentation:

There is no such thing as a "one size fits all" presentation template. Each presentation should be created with a specific audience in mind. Start by identifying your audience. Then identify your goals, how you will tie the roadmap to the broader product vision , and which roadmaps you will share.

Here are a few examples of roadmap presentation templates and guidelines for deciding what to include in your presentation:

Presentation slides template

This presentation template was created by Aha! product experts to help you showcase your plans. While the rest of the templates below are intended for specific audiences, this set of slides is easily customizable for any audience. It includes pre-built slide formats for strategic goals, key metrics, and of course, your roadmap. This template is available in Aha! Knowledge .

Start using this template now

Roadmap presentation template: Executives and advisory boards

Roadmap presentation template: Marketing team

Roadmap presentation template: Engineering and IT teams

Roadmap presentation template: Sales and support

Roadmap presentation template: Customers

Roadmap presentation template: Partners

Roadmap presentation template: Analysts and media

Every product roadmap presentation will have a specific purpose guided by its target audience. However, building many customized presentations can be a time-consuming process.

Consider using roadmapping software to centralize your product planning and feature definition. You may need to aggregate information from multiple sources to create your roadmap presentation — spreadsheets, documents, other presentations, and design tools. Software purpose-built for product management makes it easier to share product roadmap plans securely with a target audience.

Regardless of how you create your roadmap presentation, the most important thing is to focus on your audience and your goals. This will allow you to clearly communicate the features and timelines of your roadmap. You will also demonstrate the "why" at the center of it all — how the product will deliver value to your business and your customers.

Set brilliant strategy, prioritize features, and share visual plans with Aha! Roadmaps — a purpose-built product development tool. Get started with a free trial for 30 days.

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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 .

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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 PowerPoint Roadmap Templates 2024

If you’re working on a product or business roadmap presentation, we have handpicked some of the best PowerPoint roadmap templates you can use to design a killer slideshow for your presentation.

A roadmap presentation is one of the most effective methods of detailing the past, present, and future for product and business development.

Using a PowerPoint roadmap template will make the process of designing the slideshow much easier as they come packed with timelines, tables, infographics, icons, and much more to make your presentation look more professional.

Our collection of PowerPoint roadmap templates should have the perfect design for your presentation, along with a few helpful tips for creating a roadmap in PowerPoint .

How Does Unlimited PowerPoint Templates Sound?

Download thousands of PowerPoint templates, and many other design elements, with a monthly Envato Elements membership. It starts at $16 per month, and gives you unlimited access to a growing library of over 2,000,000 presentation templates, fonts, photos, graphics, and more.

Animated PPT Templates

Fully animated.

Maximus Template

Mystify Presentation

Explore PowerPoint Templates

Roadmapping – PowerPoint Roadmap Template

This professional PowerPoint template comes with multiple slides designed for presenting all kinds of roadmap presentations.

The template includes 21 unique slide designs filled with vector graphics, infographics, icons, and much more. It also comes in 5 different color schemes.

Why This Is A Top Pick

All of the shapes and tables used in this template are fully customizable. This will allow you to create more personalized roadmaps for your business presentations.

Minimal Roadmap PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint roadmap template features a set of clean and minimal slide designs. It comes with 20 unique slide templates you can easily customize to change colors, text, shapes, and more.

Project Status Report – PowerPoint Template

This template is a must-have for agencies and designers for showcasing project and product development to clients. The template comes with multiple slide layouts in 5 different color schemes you can easily customize to your preference.

Facebook Analytics PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking to create a Facebook marketing presentation, and need a roadmap template for the same, this PowerPoint product is the best contender for your cash. It features 50 unique slides, fully customizable in PowerPoint.

Eargo – Infographics PowerPoint Template

Eargo is a painstakingly designed roadmap PowerPoint template with more than 250 unique slides to choose from. It offers 12 infographic sections, ensuring you have everything you need to visualize your data in the best way possible.

Infographia PowerPoint Template

Infographia is a professional PowerPoint template with a layout that’s sure to make a statement. It features 60 custom slides (light and dark), free fonts, and a widescreen 16:9 ratio. We recommend you give Infographia a try and see for yourself the world of a difference it can make in taking your business to a new level.

Free Roadmap PowerPoint Template

Here we have an easy-to-use roadmap template for you to track your project’s progress, and communicate the same with your employees, clients, investors, and other stakeholders. It’s a ready-to-use template available for free download.

Roadie – PowerPoint Roadmap Template

Present your business plans, and sales roadmap in a sophisticated way with Roadie, a clean, and professional PowerPoint template that comes with 30 gorgeously crafted slides, free fonts, picture placeholder, and resizable and editable graphics.

Project Timeline – PowerPoint Infographics Template

If you are wanting a clean and professional template for your next roadmap presentation, you can’t go wrong with this project timeline ppt providing you with 40 unique, pixel-perfect infographic slides, KIKO icon shapes, and much more.

Von – PowerPoint Roadmap Template

Check out Von, a multipurpose PowerPoint template that consists of slides crafted with a lot of care and attention to detail. Whether you need a template for an advertising presentation or sales pitch, Von comes in very handy.

Project Roadmap PowerPoint Template

This presentation template has a modern and sleek design that instantly catches the eye and gets potential investors interested in your proposal. It contains 30 professional slides, picture placeholders, free fonts, and much more.

Monthly & Annual PowerPoint Template

Next up we have a clean and elegant roadmap PowerPoint template that you’ll be hard-pressed to not consider. It consists of 57 slide designs that can be completely customized to suit your brand needs and your personal preferences.

Leo – PowerPoint Roadmap Template

Leo is a beautiful, sophisticated PowerPoint template featuring 65 total slides out of which 10 are timeline and roadmap slides that can be edited to your liking. A great option for a wide range of creative and professional applications!

Business plan PowerPoint Roadmap Template

Next up we have a modern presentation template for showcasing your business plan to potential clients and get their approval in just a couple of minutes. It features a massive collection of 100 slides, a range of infographics, and color themes.

Web Design PowerPoint Roadmap Template

If you are a web designer, this Powerpoint template can go a long way in helping you win potential clients. It consists of timeline and roadmap slides, 5 pre-made color themes, free fonts, and a range of customizable elements.

Free Project Timeline PowerPoint Template

Our next option is a free template for PowerPoint that can help you manage and keep track of project timelines. The slides are available in light and dark backgrounds and can be completely edited to suit your needs. Grab it right now.

Free PowerPoint Roadmap Template

If you are wanting to get your hands on a great PowerPoint roadmap template without spending a penny, consider this option containing virtually everything you need to create a linear visualization of your data.

A useful PowerPoint template that comes filled with lots of infographics and tables for making impactful roadmap presentations. This template includes 30 unique slide designs in 10 different color schemes and in both light and dark color themes.

Agile Development – PowerPoint Template

Agile development is quite popular among modern businesses, especially among startups. This PowerPoint template will allow you to create roadmap presentations to showcase your agile development strategies. The template includes 20 master slide layouts.

Product Roadmap – PowerPoint Template

This premium PowerPoint template is made specifically for crafting roadmap presentations for product development. The template includes 20 unique slide designs that are also available in 5 different color schemes.

Free Roadmap Diagrams for PowerPoint

This free roadmap PowerPoint template features 8 unique slides with modern diagram designs you can use to create a simple roadmap presentation for your project. It includes infographics and icon packs as well.

Free Creative Timeline PowerPoint Template

Another simple free PowerPoint template featuring 6 unique slides. This template comes with multiple timeline slides for crafting project and product roadmaps. It also includes master slide layouts and image placeholders.

Cytrex Business Plan – PowerPoint Template

Crytex is a modern PowerPoint template that features a set of slides designed for crafting business plans. You can also easily edit the slides to create roadmap presentations as well. The template includes more than 200 unique slides in 30 color schemes.

Modern Timeline PowerPoint Template

This creative PowerPoint template comes filled with timeline slides that are perfect for crafting effective product roadmaps. The template lets you choose from 30 unique slide designs that are available in 7 pre-made color themes.

Timeline 2.0 – Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

Timeline 2.0 is a professional PowerPoint template that comes with 50 unique timeline slide designs. You can use these slides to design various roadmap presentations and slideshows. It comes in both static and animated versions as well.

Business Plan 3.0 – PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is most suitable for designing a presentation to showcase your business plan and roadmaps. It includes 40 unique slide designs that can be easily customized to your preference.

Monthly Planner – Business PowerPoint Template

Despite its name this PowerPoint template can be used to design much more than monthly plans. It includes 50 unique slide designs in 10 color schemes you can edit to create roadmaps and business plan presentations.

Business Roadmap – Free PowerPoint Template

This is a free PowerPoint template you can use to design professional roadmap presentations for all kinds of businesses, agencies, and companies. It includes 10 unique slide layouts with editable designs.

This free PowerPoint template features a set of unique slide designs that are ideal for making creative roadmap presentations. It includes 5 slide layouts you can edit with PowerPoint and Keynote.

Leave a lasting impression on your stakeholders with this beautifully designed PowerPoint roadmap template that is not just easy to edit but also fun to play around with all the amazing features it offers.

Tips for Creating a Roadmap in PowerPoint

Roadmap presentations are a type of presentation that needs to be made differently than other PowerPoint presentations. Follow these tips to create more effective roadmap slideshows.

1. Showcase a Timeline

A roadmap presentation is comprised of many things, including a story, strategy, reports, and more. Another important part that should be included is a timeline.

Whether it’s for product development or business projections, adding a timeline to your roadmap can make the entire presentation easier to understand and more entertaining as well.

2. Add Object and Transition Animations

Animations can be your best friend when designing roadmap presentations. Especially when showcasing timelines and product roadmaps, you can use object and transition animations to reveal features one at a time and make each slide transition smoothly throughout the presentation.

3. Use Infographics

Just as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. You can use pictures, specifically infographics to your advantage to showcase your strategies and roadmap while visualizing different parts in more detail. So make sure to pick a PowerPoint template that comes with editable infographics.

4. Use Only the Appropriate Colors

Be mindful when using colors in roadmap presentations. Especially describing different aspects of a roadmap, try not to use too many colors as some colors tend to show up brighter than others. Instead, use a subtle color palette throughout the presentation.

For more great templates, check out our best business PowerPoint templates collection.

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Roadmap Presentation Templates

Navigating the path to a successful presentation is easier with the right tools. With our extensive collection of roadmap presentation templates, you can visualize your strategy, milestones, and project plans seamlessly. Whether you’re a project manager or a marketing enthusiast, our range caters to all your needs.

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Discover Your Perfect Roadmap Presentation Template

Every project, business, or strategy requires a tailored approach. This is where our roadmap templates come into play. From product roadmaps to strategic roadmaps, and from technology roadmaps to project management roadmaps, our array has it all.

Why Choose Our Templates?

• Variety: Whether you’re working with PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides, our templates are available in all formats.
• Design: Each template boasts a professionally designed roadmap, ensuring your presentation stands out.
• Editable: Our roadmap templates are fully editable, allowing you to tweak them as per your requirements.
• Free & Premium Options: Whether you’re searching for free roadmap templates or a premium roadmap powerpoint template, our library is packed with choices.

Strategizing with Roadmaps: Dive Deeper

The roadmap is not merely a decorative piece on a powerpoint presentation. It is much more profound. Let’s break down its essence and how it adds unparalleled value to planning and execution.

1. Understanding the Roadmap

A roadmap is essentially a high-level blueprint, a visual map detailing the journey, whether it’s a business roadmap, a strategy roadmap, or a product roadmap.

• Roadmap Timeline : One crucial component is the roadmap timeline. This outlines crucial milestones and deadlines, giving an overall sample of how time will be distributed across tasks.
• Types of Roadmaps : It’s essential to know the type of roadmap you are working with. For instance, an innovation roadmap may focus on the introduction of new products or technologies, while a strategy roadmap outlines the overarching strategic goals.

2. Importance of a Detailed Roadmap

• Alignment : At its core, a roadmap shows the direction. It ensures that stakeholders, whether from a startup gearing up for their quarterly reviews or a corporate giant setting their yearly objectives, are on the same page.
• Guidance : The roadmap is used as a guiding point, ensuring that everyone is clear about their roles, responsibilities, and the end goal.

3. Templates: The Backbone of a Solid Roadmap

A roadmap template is a preset design or structure, streamlining the process of creating a roadmap. Depending on the need, various templates can be used:

• Product Roadmap Template : Ideal for showcasing a product’s lifecycle, from ideation to launch and later iterations.
• Strategy Roadmap Templates : Perfect for visualizing a strategy roadmap, detailing steps to achieve long-term objectives.
• Project Management Roadmap Template : Tailored for project management, it outlines the stages of a project, ensuring timely completion.

4. Features of a Good Roadmap Template

• Editable : The roadmap template includes editable features. So, whether you want to create a product roadmap or any other, modifications are hassle-free.
• Diversity : From gratis, modèle, gratuit, to plantilla, there’s a range of free product roadmap templates available for download. Need a roadmap.ppt for a penelitian or research? It’s there!
• Clarity : A roadmap also provides clarity, ensuring that any viewer, from an intern to a CEO, can understand the vision, process, and objectives in one glance.

5. Leveraging Roadmap Templates

Ready to embark on your planning journey? Here are steps to make the most of it:

• Choose Your Template : From roadmap presentation slides and templates to specialized ones like roadmap timeline templates, pick what suits your objective.
• Download & Customize : Whether downloadable from the web or from a specific platform, always ensure it aligns with your goal. And remember, always use the roadmap template as a foundation and customize it to your needs.
• Present with Confidence : With a detailed roadmap in hand, your powerpoint presentation is bound to leave an impact.

To conclude, whether you are aiming to create a roadmap for a new business venture, a product launch, or any significant endeavor, the right roadmap template not only simplifies the process but elevates the entire planning and execution phase. It’s not just about visual aesthetics; it’s about clarity, alignment, and success.

Easy Download & Use

Spot the perfect template? Simply download for free or purchase the premium ones. With formats compatible for PPT, PPTX, or even excel and powerpoint, integrating them is a breeze. And with our editable roadmap options, you can update your roadmap effortlessly as your strategies evolve.

Roadmap for Every Occasion

From agile roadmap templates for swift product launches to technology roadmap templates for IT endeavors, we cover the spectrum. If you’re building a product roadmap, a portfolio roadmap template might be your pick. Or, if detailing a project roadmap, our project roadmap template would be apt. Dive in, and you’ll also find templates suitable for HR, marketing, and even strategic roadmap templates for long-term visions.

So, whether you’re embarking on a new business journey, setting up strategic goals, or aligning your team on the next big project, our roadmap presentation templates are your best companions. Unlock your potential, create your roadmap, and watch your plans come to life.

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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

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Guide to building a product roadmap (with template and examples)

Editor’s note : This article was last updated on 30 May 2023 with more information about the components of a product roadmap, product roadmapping tools, and steps to fill out the product roadmap templates described herein. We’ve also added some FAQ about product roadmaps.

The world of product management thrives on planning and visualization, and one tool stands out as an embodiment of both: the product roadmap.

A product roadmap is a strategic document that outlines the vision, direction, and progress of a product over time. It highlights what a product team plans to achieve and how they intend to do it.

The ability to craft a good product roadmap is an essential PM skill. In this guide, we’ll define exactly what a product roadmap is and look at some examples. We’ll also walk through how to build a product roadmap and offer some general guidelines to help you choose the right format.

If you’d like to follow along as you go, these product roadmap templates can help you get started.

What is a product roadmap?

A product roadmap is a shared, living document that outlines the vision and direction of your product throughout its lifecycle.

The roadmap, at its most basic level, articulates what you are building and why. It also lays out the team’s strategy for delivering value and serves as a plan for executing the overall product strategy.

What is the purpose of a product roadmap?

The primary purpose of a product roadmap is to communicate the strategic direction of the product. It aligns all stakeholders — product managers, developers, marketers, executives, and even customers — around the product vision and goals.

Beyond communication, a product roadmap serves as a guiding tool for decision-making, helping teams prioritize initiatives and features based on their alignment with the product vision and goals.

Key components of a product roadmap

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to building a product roadmap, a well-constructed roadmap typically includes the following components that, together, help convey the product’s trajectory:

• Vision — A description of the overarching goal or destination for the product. It sets the direction for all product activities
• Goals — The specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives that contribute to the realization of the product vision
• Initiatives — High-level efforts or projects that the product team undertakes to achieve the product goals
• Features — Tangible deliverables or functionality that the product team develops and releases over time
• Timeframes — Rough estimates of when the product team aims to deliver initiatives and features

How to create a product roadmap

Building a product roadmap involves the careful balancing of business objectives, customer needs, and technical feasibility. It’s about understanding what your market wants, what your team can deliver, and how these align with your company’s goals.

Let’s look at an example. Suppose you’re a product manager for a productivity app:

• Your product vision is to be the go-to app for personal productivity
• One of your goals is to improve user engagement by 20 percent in the next six months
• To achieve this, you might initiate a project to revamp the user interface
• This initiative could involve features like a new dashboard, task prioritization functionality, and a daily summary email
• You might aim to deliver these features in the next two to three months

Embarking on the journey of creating a product roadmap may seem daunting at first because it depends heavily on your organization’s unique goals and circumstances. However, broadly speaking, the following steps will help ensure you cover all your bases when building your product roadmap:

• Define the product vision
• Set the product goals
• Identify initiatives
• Detail the features
• Estimate timeframes

1. Define the product vision

The product vision is the long-term destination for your product. It should be an inspiring and guiding statement that provides direction for your product over the next few years.

The vision should be broad enough to allow for flexibility, yet specific enough to provide clear direction.

2. Set the product goals

Product goals are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) objectives that, when achieved, will bring the product closer to its vision.

Your goals should be aligned with the overall business objectives and provide a clear path to the realization of the product vision.

3. Identify initiatives

Initiatives are the high-level efforts needed to achieve the product goals. They should be strategic and directly contribute to the achievement of the product goals.

Initiatives can span multiple releases and typically involve multiple features or tasks.

4. Detail the features

Features are the specific functionalities or tasks that need to be completed as part of an initiative. They provide the granular details of what will be developed and delivered.

Detailing the features involves breaking down the initiatives into actionable tasks that can be assigned to the development team.

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5. Estimate timeframes

Timeframes provide a rough estimate of when the initiatives and features will be delivered . These estimates are not set in stone but provide a guideline for when to expect certain features.

Estimating timeframes involves considering factors such as resource availability, technical complexity, and business priorities.

Product roadmap formats (with examples)

There are debates within the product community as to which roadmap format is the best. The truth is, none of them is perfect. The best format will depend on your organizational culture, company stage, team setup, and the nature of your product.

Regardless of which format you choose, every product roadmap should consist of three foundational elements:

Each element can come in several variations. Let’s review them one by one:

1. The ‘when’

This is the horizontal axis on a roadmap that indicates the timeline of your initiatives. It can be displayed in the following formats:

Calendar (monthly/quarterly)

Now-next-later.

Mapping your initiatives on a calendar is the most common way of visualizing a roadmap. The calendar should be either quarterly or monthly. Any longer unit will be too broad, and any shorter unit will be too unrealistically precise.

The benefit of using a calendar-based roadmap is that anyone can understand it without further explanation. The downside is that whenever you give people a timeline, it will be treated as a promise, no matter how much you insist it is not.

Below is an example of a calendar-based product roadmap:

Click here for a calendar-based roadmap template .

Note : Before attempting to fill out the template, be sure to select File > Make a copy from the menu above the spreadsheet.

The Now-Next-Later roadmap was invented by Janna Bastow, co-founder of Mind the Product . The idea is to remove the false certainty of absolute dates by replacing them with relative timeframes:

• What are we working on now?
• What will we start next?
• What are we saving for the future?

A Now-Next-Later roadmap can help your organization escape the certainty trap. Instead of wasting time discussing when things will be done, it forces a discussion on what is more important.

However, while the idea of omitting dates makes sense in theory, it’s not always practical.

If internal stakeholders are always asking, “How long are we talking here? Weeks? Quarters?”, you might want to rethink whether the Now-Next-Later roadmap is bringing more focus or confusion.

2. The ‘what’

These are the core items on your roadmap that represent what you will be working on. They might include:

Non-feature initiatives

Also in this section:

• Product roadmap example

Can you mix and match roadmap items?

A product team’s main responsibility is building features users want , so it makes sense that features make up the bulk of product roadmaps out there.

However, if you think features are the only thing that should go on a roadmap, then you would be wrong.

There are many activities that a product team has to perform to facilitate the creation of new features, such as user research, tech debt cleanup , internal tool implementation, and product launch .

Including these non-feature initiatives on a roadmap can increase transparency and help educate the rest of the company about why a seemingly small feature can take so much time.

Again, this doesn’t mean you should put every task on the roadmap. Make sure to only include initiatives that offer strategic alignment.

A feature is a solution to a user problem, but you often don’t know what the best solution is ahead of time.

If you are not sure what features to commit to, it is best to simply state the problems you want to solve on a roadmap. This leaves you with more room to explore different solutions and gets everyone to focus on the core problems .

In addition to stating the problems you want to solve, you can also describe the outcomes you want to achieve on a roadmap.

These outcomes can be either user outcomes (e.g., “Users can find what they want easily”) or company outcomes (e.g., “Increase conversion rate by 50 percent”).

They don’t have to be written as quantitative metrics , but it always helps to have some objective criteria by which to define success.

Below are examples of items that might be included in a product roadmap:

3. Categories

You can use categories to group initiatives on a roadmap. They can be displayed as either swimlanes or tags.

Product teams commonly categorize initiatives on the roadmap by things like:

• Product area
• Nature of product work (feature, growth, product-market-fit expansion , scaling)
• Strategic pillar

You should not group initiatives by more than two dimensions on a given roadmap. After all, categories are there to help internal stakeholders digest your roadmap. Introducing too many concepts will do the opposite.

If you really have to, you can create different versions of the roadmap for different audiences.

How to choose the best product roadmap format

Remember, a product roadmap needs to be tailored to your specific context. Blindly following what other companies (especially FAANG) do is like wearing an outfit tailored-made for someone else — it will look sloppy.

There is no set formula that will tell you how to create a perfect roadmap, but I will share some general guidelines and best practices for choosing the best roadmap format for your product and business:

• If your organization is culturally more traditional, has complex dependencies across different teams, or offers a time-sensitive product, sticking to a calendar-based roadmap will be your best bet
• If your organization is still small or has a product-led culture , a Now-Next-Later roadmap could be a good option.
• If your product is in an established category where features don’t differ much between competitors, having only features on your roadmap is likely enough
• If the nature of your work requires more solution exploration (e.g., growth or innovation teams), having problems or outcomes on your roadmap will give you more flexibility
• If you work on a product so large that shipping a meaningful feature could take months or even quarters, you might want to break your work down into smaller chunks and include non-feature initiatives (e.g., user research) on your roadmap
• If your audience cares more about how you are balancing your bets, you can group your initiatives by product area, size, or type of product work
• If your audience cares about how your plan contributes to higher-level goals, group your initiatives by objective or strategic pillar
• If you are a product leader managing multiple sub-teams, your audience will likely want to see initiatives grouped by team

Product roadmap templates

We’ve created customizable templates for each product roadmap format described above (you can access each template in Google Sheets below):

• Monthly product roadmap template  ( access in Google Sheets )
• Quarterly product roadmap template ( access in Google Sheets )
• Now-Next-Later product roadmap template  ( access in Google Sheets )

Note : Before attempting to fill out a template, be sure to select File > Make a copy from the menu above the spreadsheet.

These templates are also available in Miro and Figma  formats.

Monthly product roadmap template

Time-based product roadmaps are a great way to visualize your product’s journey and development over time:

To fill out the monthly product roadmap template, take the following steps:

• Identify your categories — Start by dividing your roadmap into various categories or strategic themes
• Tag your initiatives — For each category, identify the initiatives that you plan to undertake. These can represent high-level projects or features that are aligned with the specific theme of the category. Tag each initiative for easier tracking
• Understand the nature of the roadmap — Remember that this roadmap is a living document and will change according to the latest information. It’s not a release plan, and it only contains strategic items. The timeframes are only rough estimations​
• Align with product strategy — The roadmap is only part of the product strategy. Make sure to align it with your broader product vision and strategy. Provide links or references to more information about your product vision and strategy, if available​

Remember, the key is to keep it updated as your product and strategy evolve over time.

Quarterly product roadmap template

To fill out the quarterly product roadmap template, follow the same steps as above, but split your timeframes into quarters rather than months:

Now-Next-Later product roadmap template

The same steps apply to the Now-Next-Later roadmap template, except you’re not defining concrete timelines for any of your initiatives. Instead, this roadmap template calls for organizing initiatives into one of three buckets — things to do now, things to do next, and things to do later:

Project plan vs. product roadmap: What’s the difference?

While both a project plan and a product roadmap provide a framework for organizing and executing work, they serve different purposes and operate at different levels of granularity.

A project plan is more detailed and short-term focused, outlining specific tasks, responsibilities, and deadlines. A product roadmap, on the other hand, is more strategic and long-term oriented, detailing the high-level initiatives and features that contribute to the product vision.

The table below outlines the key differences between a project plan vs. a product roadmap:

(Image: A side-by-side comparison of a project plan and a product roadmap with key differences highlighted)

Agile product roadmaps

In the context of agile product management, a product roadmap is a strategic tool, but with an added layer of flexibility.

An agile product roadmap is designed to adapt to changes, learning, and feedback over time. It prioritizes outcomes over outputs, focusing more on achieving goals and solving customer problems than on delivering a fixed set of features.

For example, instead of committing to deliver Feature X in Q2, an agile roadmap might commit to solve Customer Problem Y in Q2, leaving open the possibility of what that solution might look like.

Whereas a typical product roadmap might show expected release dates for these enhancements, in agile, the notion of sticking to deadlines becomes counterintuitive:

Agile development requires an ability to respond to change and address evolving needs at any particular moment. Agile teams also spend less time estimating and forecasting how long something will take and put that time back into experimenting and actually building the product.

As a result, we expect things to change in agile and dates quickly become wishful thinking or empty promises.

Another core principle of agile is fixed capacity. We achieve this by creating stable, long-lived, cross-functional teams. In doing so, we fix our capacity, meaning that scope and/or time are the dimensions that shift. Therefore, it is not possible to pin features to dates in agile.

When we do want to fix dates in agile, scope remains flexible. Both scope and time cannot be fixed in agile:

An agile roadmap, therefore, removes the notion of product deadlines . It still maintains the concept of time (i.e., feature A will come before feature B), but nothing is tied to a specific date.

Software and tools for product roadmapping

Product roadmapping software makes it simpler to keep track of large to-do lists, backlogs, and ideas. A roadmapping tool helps to keep the various teams and stakeholders involved in building a product on track to meet development goals . It can also facilitate online collaboration and communication between employees.

Choosing the right product roadmap software will completely depend on your team, its work style, and your budget and business goals. You’ll want to consider tools that enable you to more effectively:

• Communicate priorities — A roadmapping tool should help you visibly demonstrate why it’s important for a particular task to be completed in the grand scheme of a project
• Engage stakeholders — Stakeholders require updates on progress and what is happening, and roadmapping software should help you produce an easy visual aid to ensure efficient communication and build consensus for your product vision
• Provide visibility into work — Transparency is crucial to building trust with stakeholders. You should look for roadmapping tools that help provide visibility into what your team is working on and why
• Drive efficiency — Your roadmapping software should contain all critical information in one place, making it easier for cross-functional teams to understand priorities and what they should be working on
• Foster collaboration — The best product roadmapping software provides real-time communication tools, enabling teams to quickly huddle (virtually) to answer questions and discuss new ideas

Popular tools and software for creating product roadmaps include:

• Trello — Trello is a visual and easy-to-use project management tool. It’s a kanban-style list-making application that provides a simple way to organize your team’s tasks
• airfocus — airfocus is specifically designed for product roadmapping. It has an easy-to-use roadmap builder and can be customized to meet the needs of the product team
• ProductPlan — ProductPlan prides itself on its ability to help product managers easily build and share roadmaps. It has many templates that can be customized using a drag-and-drop builder
• Productboard — Productboard helps teams organize feedback, prioritize tasks , and create a visual roadmap. By putting a focus on customer feedback, product teams are more likely to focus on meaningful backlog items, which will improve sprint planning , the customer experience, and, subsequently, revenue
• Wrike — Wrike is a product management tool with a focus on improving internal collaboration and communication and boosting employee productivity by ensuring everyone is aligned with the product roadmap
• Aha! — Aha! is one of the most popular product management tools, boasting more than 500,000 users. This product management tool can easily create a timeline with details tailored to specific stakeholders
• Roadmunk — Roadmunk has several product roadmapping features, such as milestones, various roadmap styles, and tracking ownership of tasks. It’s easy to import your data and use the drag-and-drop feature to quickly create a product roadmap
• Monday.com — Monday.com ‘s product roadmap tool is more complex than most other options, so it’s best for larger teams that can really make the most out of all of its features and tools. One of it’s main highlights is its “high-level visual summary that explains the vision and direction of your product over time”
• Asana — Asana is a popular, comprehensive tool for work and project management. It’s quite user-friendly and doesn’t require a lot of time to build it out
• ClickUp — ClickUp is a paid tool, but its free plan is very generous. In terms of product roadmaps, it doesn’t have as many bells and whistles as some of its competitors, but roadmapping is listed as an “advanced” feature
• Craft.io — Craft.io is designed specifically for building product roadmaps. It’s highly customizable and has been pushing continuous updates to improve its tools and features

If you’re on a fixed budget, you could do worse than the following free tools for product roadmapping:

• Bitrix24 —  Bitrix24 offers simple product management tools and a variety of views, including a GANTT chart, kanban board, calendar, or planner. It also provides tools to help you efficiently manage scrum teams and projects
• TeamGantt — TeamGantt has a simple drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to customize prebuilt templates. Since it’s all online, TeamGantt allows for easy collaboration between team members
• OpenProject — If you’re looking for an on-premise solution, OpenProject may be a viable product management tool. It’s also available on the cloud
• FreedCamp — Freedcamp is not specifically built for product roadmapping but can certainly be modified and adapted for that purpose. It has unlimited projects, tasks, and users under its free plan and comes with customizable tasks, subtasks, and milestones

Product roadmap strategy, planning, and communication

Product roadmap strategy involves making decisions about what to include on your roadmap and why. It’s about aligning your roadmap with your product strategy and business objectives.

During the planning phase, you might consider factors like market trends, competitive landscape, customer feedback, resource availability, and more. Your roadmap should serve as a visual representation of your strategic decisions so that you can clearly and effectively communicate your vision, goals, and expectations to key stakeholders.

Below are some considerations and best practices for communicating your strategy and short- and long-term plans to key stakeholders with your product roadmap:

• Get your stakeholders excited
• Know your audience
• Collect feedback (and mute the noise)

1. Get your stakeholders excited

It’s the product manager’s responsibility to build and manage a live roadmap that is fluid and resilient. They must convince stakeholders why the investment makes sense, obtain buy-in and the support system from inside and outside the organization, set expectations, and deliver a sense of excitement about what’s to come.

You can generate the support they you to successfully push for investment in a new product or feature by:

• Securing executive buy-in to build and sustain the product
• Specifying short- and long-term needs from all teams
• Demonstrating cohesion with ecosystem partners
• Showing customers why the product is aligned to their needs
• Applying principles that offer flexibility to adapt while minimizing noise

The first step in defining a product is to convince leadership that the offering aligns with the corporate strategy. While a product vision presents this alignment and a cash flow analysis demonstrates the value, it becomes real when leadership views the product roadmap.

The information included in the roadmap should give the executive team confidence that the offering is viable and worthy of organizational and financial support. It should include a clearly defined goal and a list of key steps or milestones toward achieving that objective.

A product roadmap should also articulate the overall product strategy and provide context to explain how it will help the team deliver on the goals spelled out in the product vision.

2. Know your audience

The key to building a good product roadmap is to understand your audience. A roadmap designed to gain buy-in from company leadership looks very different from one meant to appeal to customers. This is where a theme-based product roadmap can really come in handy, as described in this helpful guide by Andrea Saez.

In the following sections, we’ll explain how to create a product roadmap that will gain buy-in from executive leadership, the organization as a whole, partners, and customers.

Executive leadership

A roadmap for leadership needs to capture when the MVP will be available, the target customers, expected revenue, and demographics of product usage. Stakeholders will want to know when attaining total market potential is feasible (general release) and considerations for upsell opportunities. With each feature, they will want to understand the purpose and sequencing.

The main purpose of a product roadmap is to educate and convince leadership that the product or feature is worth their investment. Another key reason is to seek their direction. You have some of the best minds on the call, so you might as well leverage it!

Leadership also needs to know the KPIs you monitor and will expect updates on how you track periodically. A product roadmap sets the stage for critical thinking. It sets expectations on when volumes will ramp so that leadership has a direction on the short and long-term outlook.

Be creative about what you present as a roadmap. Typically, presentations demonstrate a timeline at the top, the critical features, and a two-line summary. That isn’t sufficient in many cases. The narrative that captures the essential customers at each phase is vital.

Peer organizations

Creating product roadmaps for peer organizations requires a much broader perspective beyond the engineering team.

For example, consider the operations team when processing claims; manual processing might be necessary for some scenarios when starting a new initiative. Your ability to identify these scenarios, the number of transactions expected every month, and features that make such processing unnecessary can make or break a project. Consider every team the product touches internally, including legal, procurement, analytics, and implementation (we will gate to sales in a bit).

Turning our attention back to the product development team, understanding what “done” looks like is very important. While a customer or leadership-facing roadmap does not need a detailed view, this is crucial for a development team. The roadmap must break down further to articulate parts of a more extensive feature that needs prioritization versus later enhancements.

Implementation and customer success teams need clarity on when features are available in sandbox and production environments to prepare their teams with the requisite training. The analytics team needs communication when new datasets are obtainable to drive KPI measurements.

Development teams need a roadmap to devise the product architecture. Most successful products work because of a tacit alignment between product management and engineering .

I find it valuable to work with the team to get creative about breaking down a more significant feature. My rule of thumb is that if it takes more than two weeks to develop, a further breakdown might be necessary. This feature breakdown translates into a more detailed roadmap that drives cross-functional alignment.

Note that the feature split should be outcome-driven — it shouldn’t be a breakdown to measure progress alone. You may ask, why wouldn’t a leadership team care about this? To put it simply, they would, and communication is critical if the feature split is significant enough. Frequently, these splits are a matter of UX enhancements, not revenue-blocking ones.

System integrators (SIs) are frequently the medium between the product and the user. Their adoption could make or break your offering.

Consider an ERP system. Product companies such as SAP rely on system integrators such as Accenture to deploy and manage the solution for the client.

Imagine that your product’s enhancement (however well-intended) breaks existing customization. Suppose the SI didn’t see this coming, or this occurs frequently. In that case, the SI might stop upgrading the product because the client now considers the downtime due to an upgrade to be unacceptable. Don’t be that product!

Webinars are a great way to relay the product roadmap for the next quarter. While that constitutes a good start, it is critical to document, especially UI or API changes, and present a forewarning of possible compatibility issues. The bottleneck isn’t the work to prepare for an upgrade but showing poorly in front of the client.

Customers and users

Customers expect your product to provide immediate relief to a current pain point while also demanding that it goes above and beyond.

For an example, take this tale of two vendors. In one of my previous roles, our operations depended heavily on solutions from third-party vendors. Without getting into specific details, both vendors offered overlapping products.

The pain point was that data resided in their systems. Vendor 1 did not provide a standard interface to retrieve data for deeper analytics. Vendor 2 did, but there was considerable pressure to set up our AI and automation environments.

During our next quarterly, we requested both vendors to present their roadmaps. When vendor 2 showed us its roadmap, it was apparent that their reps had listened to our needs. More crucially, the roadmap included well-defined timelines. Vendor 1 had plans to deliver significant updates, including ones that would have made our issues disappear. Unfortunately, it never presented anything aside from a motivational speech. This eliminated vendor 1 and we consolidated our solutions through Vendor 2.

The account manager for Vendor-1 admitted offline that he never got the product team’s backing to present anything to the customer. Put yourself in their shoes: Why would a sales manager sell your product to the customer? If you cannot provide a roadmap, pricing, and timing for a product, you might as well not build it.

Another consideration is building a suite of product capabilities that enables incremental opportunities. Think of your product as a set of Lego blocks where the outcomes are more remarkable than the sum of the parts. You are overdelivering to most of your customers when you build something as an all-inclusive product.

A customer-facing roadmap is typically a quarterly or monthly timeline highlighting significant enhancements to the product. It needs to relay in about 15–20 words why the feature drives value for them.

The sales team prefers a similar snapshot. However, I recommend customizing it depending on the sales team’s audience.

3. Collect feedback (and mute the noise)

Knowing what feedback is crucial versus what is noise is essential to building sustainable products.

When introducing a new product, you can always expect feedback, which is god. However, most of it is tactical, and suggestions tend to resolve a symptom rather than a root cause.

As an example, once I had a customer demand a feature for a unique scenario. The sales team was adamant that the product was a no-go until we added the feature. We got on a call with the customer, talked through it, and determined it was an arcane rule that wasn’t even valid.

In other cases, I’ve seen product teams turn an enhancement request into an opportunity for a new revenue stream. The point is to separate the signal from the noise. Don’t be afraid to reprioritize your product roadmap when there is a good rationale.

Get on a call with the customer and have an open-ended discussion; you might discover unpolished diamonds that could lead to new avenues for success. Once you deliver an MVP, get close with the users and measure the product’s results against expectations. Understand the critical pain points. Then, brutally prioritize them against ROI, ease of development, the product’s readiness, and the market.

A well-designed product roadmap can be a powerful tool to help product managers secure buy-in from stakeholders and communicate their vision across the organization. It provides clarity, fosters alignment, facilitates communication, guides decision-making, and ultimately, helps drive product success.

Understanding how to create a product roadmap — and, more importantly, the power it can wield when communicated effectively — is a key step in the product manager career development journey and a crucial factor in getting any product development lifecycle off on the right track.

Product roadmap FAQ

How long should a product roadmap be, does a product roadmap include deadlines, how does a product roadmap relate to a product backlog.

In most cases, your roadmap should focus on the upcoming six to 18 months.

It is very rare for a product team to produce a meaningful plan any further into the future. If you ask 10 product managers how long they tend to stick to their roadmaps, nine of them will tell you less than three months.

Generally speaking, you should avoid committing to deadlines because software product development is full of uncertainties. There is no point making promises when you can’t fulfill them.

Unfortunately, the real world has constraints we can’t bypass, which sometimes makes deadlines a necessary evil. Don’t be afraid to impose deadlines if you have to, as long as you understand that they are the exception, not the rule.

It is perfectly fine to combine multiple approaches on the same roadmap.

For example, you can:

• Share concrete features you will soon build and high-level problems you want to solve in the future
• Pair initiatives with the outcomes you hope they’ll achieve

As a product manager, you own the backlog . Make sure to capture backlog items, drive transparency within the organization, and provide a rationale.

The product roadmap is a fluid document; it may evolve based on a wide range of parameters, such as a change in organization’s strategy, a shift in the market or user behavior, or the arrival of a new competitor.

The backlog needs to be regularly updated and realigned to keep up with changes in the product roadmap. It’s common for user stories and tasks to become outdated during this process, so you should remove these irrelevant items from the backlog as soon as you receive clear-cut direction from the stakeholders.

Remember that product management is 70 percent science and 30 percent craft, so get creative!

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Business growth

Business tips

Product roadmaps: A complete guide [+ templates]

When I'm managing even a small project, I have a system of notes, file folders, color codes, and lists ( so many lists) that I use to have any chance of keeping the project on schedule. My system works because I'm the only one who has to use it.

As a product manager, you don't have the luxury of maintaining total control over your project planning systems. You have to allow entire teams to share your organizing systems and still find a way to keep everything running smoothly. 

That's where the product roadmap comes in. A product roadmap keeps everyone on the same page as to where a product is and where it's headed next. It's also a status updater, a communication tool, and a governing authority that defines how product work needs to be documented, who's responsible for different tasks, and what milestones and deadlines need to be met. 

This guide will take you through every step of the product roadmapping process and even provide you with templates to get you started.

Table of contents:

What goes into a product roadmap?

Why are product roadmaps important?

Who uses a product roadmap, how to create a product roadmap, 7 types of product roadmaps (with templates), how to present a product roadmap to stakeholders, tips for creating a product roadmap, what is a product roadmap.

A product roadmap (or product development roadmap) is a document that acts as the singular authority for information on a product's progress, including roles and timelines for all related teams and stakeholders. Roadmaps can be as simple or complex as necessary, but they're always easy to understand and accessible to everyone who is or will be involved in the product's development. 

A roadmap is what's called a "single source of truth": it aggregates all product information from every team involved in the development project. Individual teams can also have their own department-wide systems, but all of that information should also be stored in the product roadmap. That way, everyone on the project is referencing the same source for updated information.

What are the key components of a product roadmap?

Roadmaps are unique snowflakes (and honestly as complex): each one is different depending on the type of product in development, the industry the product belongs to, the size and shape of the product team, and the particular needs of the company producing the product. 

All differences aside, nearly all product roadmaps contain these key components:

Product features: Features are the functions the product needs to perform and the problems it should solve. Typically, the development team is in charge of sifting through feedback from users and deciding what features to implement next.

User stories: User stories make up the most basic units on a roadmap within an agile framework. Written from the end user's perspective, they describe the ultimate goal of a product feature. ("Story" and "feature" are sometimes used interchangeably.) Collections of related stories make up epics.

Epics: In agile product roadmaps, epics are collections of stories. They can span across multiple teams (or even across multiple software version launches), and there can be many of them involved in a given roadmap.

Product releases: Features are rolled out to users in planned product releases. Often a completed feature will be held until other features are finished being implemented, so multiple features can be included in one release for optimal CX . 

Product initiatives: Initiatives show how sets of stories, features, tasks, and projects come together to actualize product goals. Initiatives keep teams focused on goal-centric efforts.

Product goals: Goals correspond to product features and outline how and when that feature will be implemented. Goals should be time-bound and measurable, and a roadmap might include multiple goals on the path toward completing a single feature.

Product timelines: Usually, a product roadmap timeline will include not only the dates associated with each milestone, but also a list of the teams and individuals responsible for each process as well as the stakeholders affected by different updates and goal completions.

Product roadmaps keep every member of every team focused on the same goal. It can be all too easy to get caught up in the cycle of completing isolated tasks within individual teams, but with a unified roadmap, stakeholders at every level and in every department know where they stand in the development process and how their individual contributions factor in.

Let's say a software company is releasing an update to one of their products. The engineering team plays many of the key roles in executing the technical aspect of the release and accounts for the biggest chunk of the roadmap. Meanwhile, the UX team has its own tasks to ensure the updates are aligning with user experience standards. As all this is going on, the marketing team is updating social media, scheduling email campaigns, and building awareness for the key features of the upcoming update. At any given time, each of these teams can consult the roadmap to see where their roles fit into the project timeline as they continue performing separate tasks on projects related to other products.

A well-conceived product roadmap has these key benefits:

Improved goal alignment across teams and stakeholders

Improved alignment between developmental teams and broader business objectives

Transparency about timelines and progress toward milestones

More effective product planning

Clear translation of product strategy

Creation of a single source of truth for all teams and stakeholders

Streamlined development strategy

Development of a single, shareable visualization of product timelines, relevant teams, and required milestones

Clear outlining of priorities to fend off non-outcome-driven tasks and keep teams focused

This isn't exactly a shocker: the product manager and their team are responsible for building, maintaining, and facilitating the product roadmap. And if you're the product manager, you want to do everything possible to make sure that only your team manages the roadmap—especially when operating at scale, roadmap planning can very quickly become a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation.

Some concrete tasks that the product management team is responsible for include:

Selecting a roadmap type that fits the product development process

Building the product roadmap

Updating the product roadmap with changes and new information from all teams and stakeholders

Ensuring all stakeholders document their work correctly

Troubleshooting obstacles and bottlenecks in the product development process

Product managers will probably have to interact with other departments throughout the company to build a roadmap that aligns with greater company goals. Once a roadmap is created, it applies to everyone with a role to play in its execution. For example, marketing teams might reference it to align their publicity deliverable timelines, and customer service teams may need to plan for an influx of support tickets around the release date.

Explore the best product management software options to create and execute actionable strategies.

Product roadmaps can vary widely in complexity, from shorter-term timelines (like a now/next/later roadmap) to complex ones that span years (like a detailed capacity roadmap). And when a product manager is plotting out a full development cycle, they'll often use a combination of roadmap styles for different aspects of the process.

A comprehensive, full-scale product roadmap is a beast of a document, so the best way to build one is the same way you would eat an elephant: one bite at a time.

1. Identify the product strategy: The product manager needs to have a strong grasp on the product strategy, market fit , and company goals in order to ensure the product roadmap aligns with and supports these broader initiatives.

2. Gather stakeholder perspectives: Working closely with your teams and stakeholders, collect firsthand information about the work, what it requires, and common problems.

3. Determine product goals and features: From the information you've gathered from stakeholders, identify what the product's features will be and break them down into actionable goals using the specs for your minimum viable product (MVP).

4. Define feature priorities: Once you've accumulated a general list of potential features, it's a good idea to prioritize them, so you can schedule gradual releases or delegate resources to high-priority features first. Consider common frameworks like Cost/Benefit, Value/Complexity, Story Mapping, MoSCoW Analysis, or Kano Analysis.

5. Match goals with releases: Once you've determined the parameters of your MVP, you can map the steps and milestones necessary to produce the earliest version of the product and schedule your first (beta) release.

6. Set a timeline: Tie your features, goals, and releases to scheduled milestones, consulting directly with stakeholders before setting deadlines to make sure they're feasible.

If your team uses a project management framework like Agile , you can apply it to your roadmap to keep your teams organized and so tasks or sprints can be assigned according to their usual workflows.

Starting a product roadmap from scratch? These templates each provide a structure for different facets or views depending on the scope of your particular roadmap. 

You can use just one to focus on a particular aspect of your process, or you can combine multiple templates to create a more comprehensive plan for your product's development. Don't let our preset labels limit you, either—we've also included blanks for you to modify and use however works best for you.

1. Theme roadmaps

It's essential for a project manager to start the roadmapping process with an understanding of the company's larger product strategy and business goals. 

A Themes x Features roadmap can help keep your thoughts organized as you start to determine where your planned features fit into these broader initiatives or "themes."

When you begin to break your features down into smaller goals and the projects dedicated to achieving those goals, a Themes x Projects roadmap can help keep all of the decisions you make about smaller processes and milestones in alignment with broader business goals.

2. Product portfolio roadmap

When first starting to map out the basics of your product roadmap, the four main items you need to determine are the product's goals, features, projected releases, and the teams that will be involved in the product development project. This high-level view gives you a framework to start with before filling in more details, and it also allows you to keep track of multiple products you may be managing at once.

3. Releases x Features roadmap

This roadmap zooms in to organize one very specific aspect of your project planning: which features will be grouped into each release. With a Release x Features roadmap in hand, you can run your plans by developers to ensure each group of features isn't too large to be feasible, and you can get more accurate estimates as to how much time will need to go into each release.

4. Capacity roadmap

Once you know what your product features and goals will be—but before you tie product milestones to a timeline—you need to determine who will be responsible for the different tasks involved in the product's development. A capacity roadmap aligns different tasks with the departments responsible for them and the period of time in which that team will be working on those tasks. Our version also allows you to assign tasks to different teams within a department. 

5. Task management roadmap

Different types of roadmaps allow you to view the same issue from different frames. With a task management roadmap, you're focusing on tasks and teams—just like in the capacity map—but the focus here is on determining when, generally speaking, those teams will tackle those tasks. You can also fill in what other things each team has on its plate, so you can see when they have the most availability to work on your product.

6. Now/next/later roadmap

Most product roadmaps are laid out across several months, fiscal quarters, or even years. A now/next/later roadmap takes the opposite approach and zooms in for a "snapshot" of the product development process in its current state. Now/next/later roadmaps can be especially useful for getting a project or process back on track after an obstacle or delay.

7. Product vision roadmap

It's a product manager's job to always know what's coming next, and that includes which development projects and new goals are lined up after the completion of the current product. A product vision roadmap is a strategic way to simultaneously brainstorm future opportunities and begin to plan what projects are on the horizon for your product team.

Bonus: Blank horizontal, vertical, and matrix roadmap templates

The templates above offer just a small selection of the different tasks, processes, and goals that can be organized using a roadmap. If you want to start a more custom roadmap from a truly blank template, you can download the basic structure of these by layout to fill in your own labels and titles:

Even a perfectly executed roadmap doesn't mean much if it doesn't get buy-in. And to get buy-in, you need to be able to present it effectively to both executive stakeholders and the development teams responsible for executing (cue the nail-biting). Here's how to position your roadmap to give it the best possible chance for adoption (while keeping your vision and nail beds intact).

Tailor it to your audience: Since you may be presenting to multiple audiences with different roles in the organization, it's important to tailor your roadmap presentation to them. Implementation teams may be concerned with scoping and having long enough timelines, while executives may be more interested in implementation costs and time to value.

Map back to company goals: Ultimately, your roadmap should advance the broader company goals. Show your audience how successful execution will connect to what the company as a whole values and strives for.

Tell a story: The best way to get people invested in your roadmap is to take them along its journey. Frame it with a beginning, middle, and end, just like any story, so you can walk stakeholders through the process and make it less abstract.

Show proof: It's not enough to say what you want to do—you need to also be able to prove the accuracy of your estimates for timelines, resources, and outcomes as much as possible. Back your claims up with real data to make the presentation believable.

Make it airtight: If there's an element of your roadmap that still feels a little rocky, the last thing you want is for someone to ask questions about it. If you feel any hesitation about any part of your roadmap, iron it out first, so you don't end up scrambling during the presentation. If you can't, acknowledge the gap straight on.

Be realistic, not optimistic: This is basically the old "under-promise, over-deliver" adage. Stakeholders want to know your roadmap is viable, not that it's going to be finished in record time. Resist the temptation to strive for impressive promises and instead lean on real data and unbiased projections.

In the end, everyone wants to prioritize the most impactful projects. A well-designed product roadmap will communicate value, give all teams a single source of truth for timelines and expectations, and help keep everyone focused on goal-centric work. 

Here are a few key takeaways to help you get the most out of yours:

Cater your roadmap presentations to your audience.

Be as realistic as possible about timelines, deliverables, and values.

Keep your roadmap concise.

Always relate features, stories, epics, and other tasks to agreed-upon product goals.

Align the roadmap to the greater company goals.

Make the roadmap accessible to every stakeholder, but limit editing permission.

A product roadmap won't eliminate all the work required to keep your product's development on track. As you scale, you'll want to automate internal processes as much as possible, like syncing information across platforms and sending update notifications to different teams.

Related reading:

How to get your team aligned

4 ways project management automation makes your job easier

How to streamline sales with AI and automation

12 of the best ways to work smarter, not harder

This post was originally published in May 2022 and was most recently updated win contributions from Bryce Emley in June 2023.

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Amanda Pell

Amanda is a writer and content strategist who built her career writing on campaigns for brands like Nature Valley, Disney, and the NFL. When she's not knee-deep in research, you'll likely find her hiking with her dog or with her nose in a good book.

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3 Easy Ways to Create a Roadmap with Milestones in PowerPoint

Last Updated: July 28, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Kyle Smith . Kyle Smith is a wikiHow Technology Writer, learning and sharing information about the latest technology. He has presented his research at multiple engineering conferences and is the writer and editor of hundreds of online electronics repair guides. Kyle received a BS in Industrial Engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 12,118 times. Learn more...

Roadmaps are a fantastic way to illustrate your project’s timeline and milestones. Making a roadmap is easy in Microsoft PowerPoint. You can use ready-to-use templates to quickly set up a roadmap. Alternatively, create a roadmap from scratch using PowerPoint’s shape tools. This wikiHow article will go over what a roadmap is, using a template, and making two types of roadmaps from scratch.

Things You Should Know

• A roadmap is great for illustrating a business project. It provides a clear, chronological path for your team.
• Use a template in PowerPoint if you want to quickly create and customize an existing roadmap format.
• Create a high-level or detailed roadmap from scratch if you want complete creative freedom over the organization of your roadmap.

What Is a Roadmap?

• High-level roadmaps feature 4 to 6 stages displayed in chronological order. This type of roadmap is a good way to provide a broad overview of a project to your audience.
• Detailed roadmaps show many project tasks and when they’ll occur. This roadmap is great for showing every step of a project to your team and stakeholders.
• In this wikiHow guide, we’ll walk through a few ways to make roadmaps in PowerPoint. Take a look at our intro guide to PowerPoint if you want to review the basics.

Using a Template

• Some PowerPoint templates will have multiple slides featuring different roadmap formats in similar styles.

• For example, if the template has headers that say “Milestone,” change these headers to your project’s key stages. This could be something like Planning, Analysis, Design, and Implementation.

• Text and shape placement. Click and hold a text box or shape. Drag it to a new location on the slide.
• Text font. Click the edge of a text box to select it. In the Home tab Font section, choose a new font, size, color, or highlight for the text.
• Shape color. Click a shape to select it. In the Home tab Drawing section, change the outline or fill color for the shape.

High-Level Roadmap From Scratch

• Click Blank Presentation . This is in the top left of the PowerPoint Home screen.
• Click New Slide . You’ll find this under the Home tab in the Slides section. A drop-down menu with new slide options will appear.
• Select Blank . A new slide will be created with nothing on it.

• Click the text box button. The button is in the Text section at the top of the screen. This will activate the text box-drawing tool.
• Click and hold anywhere on your slide. This will be where one corner of your text box starts.
• Drag your cursor to draw the text box. Then, let go when you’ve drawn the text box size and shape that you want. (You can always edit the text box after letting go!)
• To resize the text box, click and drag one of the 8 nodes on the textbox.
• To move the text box, click and drag an edge of the textbox.

• To change the font, click the edge of a text box to select it. In the Home tab Font section, choose a new font, size, color, or highlight for the text.
• To change the alignment, select an option in the Paragraph section of the Home tab.
• To change the text box colors, go to the Shape Format tab. Change the Shape Fill and Shape Outline colors in the Shape Styles menu.

• Right-click an edge of the text box if you’re currently typing in the text box. Otherwise, you can right-click anywhere in the text box.
• Select Copy in the drop-down menu.
• Right-click any blank spot on your slide.
• Select the paste option with an “a” on top of a clipboard. This will paste a copy of the text box using the theme of your presentation.

• To add a photo, go to the Insert tab, click Pictures in the Images section. Select a photo from your device or PowerPoint’s stock image search menu.
• To add an icon, go to the Insert tab, click Icons in the Illustrations section. Select an icon from the Icons menu.

Detailed Roadmap From Scratch

• A brief title for each task.
• Approximately when the task will start and end.
• What team is working on each task.

• The columns will represent the timeline for your project. The column headers will be equally spaced times. For example, a year-long project starting in January could list January through December as the column headers. This would be 13 columns total — 12 for the months and 1 for the row headers.
• The rows will represent different teams (or individuals) that are responsible for different key tasks. For example, you might have 3 teams: Design, Analytics, and Marketing. This would be 4 rows total — 3 for the teams and 1 for the column headers.

• Click OK to confirm your settings and make the table. It will appear on your slide.
• Resize the table to fill the slide. Click and drag the 8 nodes until your table fills most or all of the slide.

• Click and drag to select the cells you want to edit.
• Navigate to the Home tab to choose a new font size, color, and alignment so that the text is easy to read and matches the style you're going for.

• Arrange the text boxes as needed. Click and drag the edges of the text boxes to move them. Place each key task in the column and row that corresponds with the time and team for the task respectively.

Expert Q&A

• If you’re having trouble finding or selecting a specific text box or shape, open the Selection Pane. This will show a list of every object on your slide. Click the object’s name in the list to select it. The Selection Pane can be opened by going to the Home tab, clicking Select in the Editing Section, and choosing Selection Pane . Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you made a presentation roadmap from scratch and want to use it again in the future, you can make it a template . Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/business-roadmaps

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Roadmap Infographics

Free google slides theme, powerpoint template, and canva presentation template.

Infographics are great visual aids to present complex pieces of information or data. Do you need a helping hand? Get the show on the road with these roadmap infographics for your presentations!

Roadmap diagrams are great for projects and organizations. They are powerful tools that create a linear visualization of your data, timelines or steps. As their name suggests, they look like roads or paths. Use them to talk about your history, goals, where you want to be, future projects or the different stages of your work.

Our infographics have three, four, five, seven or nine elements in different shapes and styles: curved or straight roads, paths with and without trees or traffic circles. We have also added icons, speech bubbles and other shapes to depict your information. Colors are varied as well, including red, yellow, green, blue and gray. All these resources are completely editable and fairly easy to personalize. Use them for personal or commercial projects, business, health, education… You choose!

Features of these infographics

• Infographic templates with a lot of roads and paths
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• Include icons and Flaticon’s extension for further customization
• Designed to be used in Google Slides, Canva, and Microsoft PowerPoint and Keynote
• 16:9 widescreen format suitable for all types of screens
• Include information about how to edit and customize your infographics

How can I use the infographics?

Am I free to use the templates?

How to attribute the infographics?

Attribution required If you are a free user, you must attribute Slidesgo by keeping the slide where the credits appear. How to attribute?

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