As a kind of scenario, the roadmap allows you to set a course to reach, even if it may need to evolve over time as the project develops.
It’s not a fixed document, but rather an evolving one, in constant alignment with the company’s values and vision.
Roadmaps serve several different purposes. They enable you to do the following:
- Improve collaboration and provide joint documents to all players involved in the project. In this way, each team member becomes more aware of their role and actions in the process.
- Set priorities and milestones. Thanks to the roadmap, things are done one after the other, in a defined order, following certain deadlines.
- Achieve objectives. The roadmap is a succession of stages to be completed in order to achieve a predetermined result.
Several tools are now available for creating roadmaps. Roadmap, Aha!, Wrike, Airfocus, and Roadmap Planner are just some of the software programs with a variety of agile features that can help you in this process, allowing you to draw up schedules ranging from the simplest to the most elaborate.
First and foremost, if you choose to create your own roadmap, it’s essential to make a list of all the tasks you’ll need to establish in order to carry out your project(s), whether they’re short-, medium- or long-term assignments.
Then, remember to allocate a budget and resources to each of these tasks.
You should also be aware that a roadmap can be oriented in different ways. It can be based exclusively on deadlines, but it can also be based on objectives, tasks broken down by collaborators, or by theme.
Once a roadmap has been created, it should be shared with all employees involved in the project. Its collaborative aspect is one of the major challenges of the roadmap.
After that, it's up to you to make it evolve over time, according to changes in the market or feedback and questions from your customers.
Flexible and with a design that’s adaptable at will, a roadmap is an indispensable working tool for explaining the main priorities of a common project to all those collaborating on it.
