What is roadmap software? How product roadmap tools work
Last updated: September 2024
How do you build a successful product? The product development process starts with a breakthrough idea to solve a real problem and a deep understanding of the customers you serve. Product managers define the product vision — why you are building the product and the direction you are headed. Then, you set strategic goals and a detailed plan for achieving them.
Your product roadmap tool visualizes that plan: what will get built, when it will be done, and how the work will help you reach your goals. A roadmap helps your product team stay focused on the work that matters most and communicates strategy, new features, timing, and dependencies to the broader organization.
Build a product roadmap using Aha! Roadmaps. Sign up for a trial.
A complete product roadmap tool like Aha! Roadmaps provides a framework that makes it easy to set and share product strategy. You can use one tool to create goals and initiatives, collaborate on product plans, prioritize features, and quickly build visual timelines for different audiences. By linking every release and feature to the goals and initiatives they support, the team can better understand how well you are delivering against your set strategy.
Yes — we build roadmapping software here at Aha! and are talking about its importance. We are admittedly biased. But whether or not you choose Aha! Roadmaps, the value of using a product roadmapping tool is undeniable. The bottom line? Manual spreadsheets as product roadmaps have got to go.
Jump ahead to explore any section in this article:
What is product roadmapping software?
Product roadmapping software helps product teams refine ideas and add structure to them through releases, features, and requirements. Using a roadmap tool to visualize your product plans helps you quickly communicate to stakeholders and cross-functional teams when you will deliver new functionality to customers.
Roadmapping software is one of several tools within a larger product development software category. Each stage of the product development process — from ideation to build to launch — requires deep thinking, prioritizing, and refining what is created. That is why product development teams often use a variety of software solutions to fuel the entire process.
Key features of roadmapping tools include:
Workflow whiteboards that house features and requirements
Visual release timelines and Gantt charts
A roadmap builder and templates
User story mapping options
Presentation tools
Used in concert with other tools built to support design, customer feedback management, and agile development, product roadmapping software can help support your product's lasting success.
The purpose and benefits of using a product roadmap tool
Some product managers still create roadmaps using spreadsheets and text documents. But these are singular endeavors that fill a need for a specific audience, at a specific time. They are disconnected from your daily work, largely because it takes so much effort to keep something static updated. This struggle is nothing new. According to a survey by McKinsey, 75% of product managers shared that their organization had not adopted product management best practices. Tools are not a panacea, but the right roadmapping software and disciplined practices to go along with it can help change that.
Strategy underpins your product roadmap. Leveraging a tool to build and maintain your roadmap helps you connect your strategy to action — ensuring product and cross-functional teams stay aligned on the work that needs to get done and why.
Key benefits of using a product roadmap tool include:
Strategic alignment: Link product strategy to your business goals — prioritizing features and initiatives based on the value they will bring.
Centralized and accessible information: Store all your product plans, features, and timelines within one platform.
Enhanced collaboration and visualization: Create shareable visuals that allow stakeholders to better understand plans, contribute ideas, and provide feedback.
Streamlined execution: Gain efficiency and productivity as you operate against a real plan.
Flexibility Change timelines, priorities, and features once, then watch them automatically update within your plan.
Tracked progress: Increase accountability and visibility into feature status to identify blockers early on and report on progress in real time.
The right roadmap tool can help connect your company's "why" to its "what" and "when," placing business strategy, goals, and initiatives front and center.
Related:
Who is responsible for choosing a product roadmapping tool?
Generally, product management chooses which tool will best serve its needs. Product managers are responsible for developing and implementing the product strategy as well as maintaining the product roadmap. You take the lead when it comes to selecting the right tool, as you tend to understand the specific features and functionalities that are most important.
Product managers consider several factors during this process, including their team's size, collaboration needs, integration capabilities, budget, and how the tool fits within existing processes. Although the decision ultimately lies with product management, it is important to consult with cross-functional teammates from engineering, UX, customer success, and marketing. Everyone will use the roadmap to stay aligned on the product vision and prioritize features — so getting buy-in from the beginning is essential.
Related:
What to look for in a product roadmap tool
Roadmapping software is an obvious improvement over disjointed documents and slide decks. It is also a real upgrade from project management tools (such as Asana, monday.com, and Trello) that might be sufficient for task-based work, but break down when you need strategic cohesion across many divisions or product lines. The larger the team and business, the harder it becomes to plan and track all the work without a single source of truth.
Every roadmap tool is different, and there are many options available to you. So we often get asked how Aha! software compares to other roadmapping tools in the market. Aha! Roadmaps is a complete product management suite that helps you set strategy, capture ideas, score features, and share visual plans. Given its robust integrations with development tools (including our own Aha! Develop), product teams and engineers are able to work from dynamic roadmaps and deliver more value to customers.
No matter which tool you choose, look for software that helps you:
Align the team on the strategic goals and initiatives
Link strategy to detailed work and decide what to build next
Capture and score requests and ideas from customers
Collaborate on early-stage thinking about things such as product requirements, release management, and customer journeys
Manage your product backlog and prioritize features
Create visual roadmaps for unique audiences
Report on progress and analyze delivery metrics
Store and organize important product documentation
Integrate with your design and development tools
Key questions to ask when choosing a product roadmap tool
Choosing a product roadmap tool can be challenging. You probably feel pressure from all angles — leadership wants you to show results now, and cross-functional teams might be hesitant to adopt new software. But based on the time and financial investment required, you want to be sure you make an informed and confident decision. Here are some questions to help guide this process:
What are your specific needs and goals? | Identify your top reasons for seeking out a roadmapping tool. Perhaps you are looking to save time, build connected roadmaps, improve team workflows, or integrate with the software tools you already use. |
What does your product development process look like today? | Do you follow a prescribed product development methodology such as the Scaled Agile Framework®, or do you use an alternative or hybrid framework? Software that has pre-built templates and guidance for building roadmaps that fit your framework of choice can save you a significant amount of time. |
Is the tool user-friendly and intuitive? | Consider the tool's navigation and overall user experience. Is it easy to get started? Can the team continue to use it as you grow? Take the time to trial different tools to get a feel for the software. |
Will the tool have the capabilities you need as your product and team mature? | Look for a tool that supports your product development work beyond roadmapping. Does the software include capabilities such as idea management, digital whiteboarding, documentation, and agile development? |
Does the tool support collaboration and communication? | Can multiple team members contribute to the roadmap? Does the tool allow for comments, discussions, or feedback? Look for features that facilitate collaboration. |
What visualization options are available? | Can you create different views, such as strategic roadmaps and Gantt charts? Consider the flexibility to present and share the roadmap in a visually appealing way. |
Does the tool integrate with other tools in your tech stack? | This might include project management software, issue-tracking systems, or development tools. Seamless integration can streamline workflows and avoid duplicating efforts. |
How does the tool handle data security and privacy? | Ensure the tool provides adequate data protection, encryption, and user access controls to safeguard your sensitive product information. |
What is the pricing structure? | Assess whether it aligns with your budget and provides enough value with the features and functionality it offers. |
Does the tool offer customer support and documentation? | Is there access to documentation, tutorials, or a knowledge base? Determine the types of customer support available — think: email, chat, or phone support — and how quickly folks respond. |
Considering these questions will help you evaluate different product roadmap tools holistically. This will help you select a tool that best serves your unique needs.
Related:
4 steps for using a product roadmap tool like Aha! Roadmaps
Roadmapping tools offer varying levels of customization and functionality. It is important to find the right tool for your product so you can effectively collaborate and bring plans to life. Building your first roadmap using a cloud-based roadmapping tool might be easier than you think.
Step 1: Enter your data and set strategy
Gather existing data and product plans (from business models and positioning statements to planned initiatives and features) and enter it all in the roadmapping tool. Depending on the software, you might be able to create new records manually, import a CSV file, or connect via an API or integration.
The best roadmaps link goals and initiatives all the way down to the detailed features that support them, so spend time upfront creating these connections. A structured hierarchy could look like this:
Goals: Product objectives that have clearly defined success metrics and time frames
When you create connections across the work and tie it all back to your goals, the value of what you provide becomes clear to the organization. You can monitor success through the lens of customer and business value and better line up future work with product strategy.
Related:
Step 2: Select your roadmap view
Once you enter your product data and build out the strategy, you are ready to create your first roadmap. What you include on it will depend on whom you are presenting to. For instance, executives might want to see an overview of progress toward goals and initiatives and the time frames for delivery. But the engineering team probably needs a more granular view that includes upcoming releases, features, and requirements.
Best-in-class tools such as Aha! Roadmaps provide roadmap templates to get you started. Here are a few examples:
Portfolio roadmap: Displays the plans for multiple products across a suite of products and solutions
Strategy roadmap: Gives a high-level summary of progress toward goals and initiatives
Now, Next, Later roadmap: Showcases current, upcoming, and planned work without committing to specific dates
Features roadmap: Provides a detailed view of features and releases — including timing, status, assignee, and progress
An example of how to visualize what features your team is planning and when from Aha! Roadmaps
Related:
Step 3: Customize your roadmap
Adjust the information shown on your roadmap to highlight the story you want to tell. For instance, you might tailor your roadmap in the following ways:
Choose particular releases | Perhaps you want to highlight releases across products or just show releases for the upcoming quarter. |
Zero in on features | You might choose to view features that support a particular initiative or compare features from one release to another. If you are presenting the roadmap to a small team, you could display the features assigned to those individuals. |
Show internal vs. external dates | If your roadmap software allows it, set both internal and external release dates. This helps with release management and gives you the ability to assign specific due dates internally while committing to a broader external release date. Then, you can display either date on the roadmap depending on the audience. |
Of course, there are many other details you can adjust on your roadmap to emphasize certain information. Try assigning unique colors to different products, teams, or types of work. Or add status indicators to features and initiatives for a quick visual gauge of progress. For more ideas, see our guide with compelling roadmap examples.
Step 4: Share the roadmap with your team
The valuable work of creating a roadmap does not stop here. Now, it is time to share the roadmap and communicate your plans with colleagues, stakeholders, and customers. Our team follows The Aha! Framework for product development, which means we share our product roadmaps on a monthly basis. Depending on the size of your team and your current product development processes, you might need to share your roadmaps more or less frequently.
No matter the cadence, look for a tool that allows you to share the roadmap in multiple ways — such as an image, PDF, webpage, or on a presentation.
Keeping the roadmap updated is critical in helping the entire team stay on track. You need to be able to instantly see changes to the roadmap when you adjust plans. And you need a tool that automatically updates your roadmap every time a small detail (dates, assignees, etc.) changes.
Related:
Product roadmap templates
Ready to build your roadmap? If you have not yet selected a roadmapping tool, using Excel and PowerPoint roadmap templates can be a good starting point. There will be limitations, however, and the experience will not be as robust as using purpose-built roadmap software (Aha! Roadmaps being one example). This is because your roadmap is constantly evolving and should be maintained to help the entire organization plan work.
Craft your product roadmap in Aha! Roadmaps. Sign up now.
Some folks prefer to use a whiteboard option (like the one below) to sketch out roadmap ideas that can be quickly visualized on a timeline. This can be especially useful if you are still in the early planning stages of your product development process. If you start with a lightweight roadmap in our software, you can convert sticky notes and items on the whiteboard into real features in Aha! Roadmaps. You can even add to and send items from your whiteboard to certain development tools, including Jira and Azure DevOps.
Roadmapping advice from the Aha! team
Given that Aha! builds product development tools, people often ask us to share our roadmapping process. It helps that we use our own software to plan and manage what we build. And it is not just our product management and UX team that use Aha! Roadmaps. Everyone in the company — including Customer Success, finance, and marketing — plans, tracks, and manages work using our suite of tools.
Our approach to product roadmapping hinges on these key principles:
Start with goals: We set clear, measurable, and time-bound objectives, and we link all our detailed work back to these top-level goals. Some goals might surprise you, including lovability.
Listen to customers: We welcome customer feedback, review it quickly, and align our roadmap with customer needs.
Prioritize ruthlessly: We use the Aha! product value scorecard to prioritize features and enhancements based on impact and effort.
Learn and adjust: We regularly revisit and adjust the details of our release plans to stay on course. We also defined what "regularly" means by establishing a schedule of what to review and refresh during each stage of our own product development process. But this could look different for your team.
You have a big job ahead to roadmap the future of your product. The right habits and exceptional roadmapping software can help you get there.
FAQs about roadmap software
Should I create and manage different types of roadmaps (such as product roadmaps, release roadmaps, and portfolio roadmaps)?
In a tool like Aha! Roadmaps, a product roadmap is simply a visual representation of your product plans: the work you want to accomplish and when you will get there. It is not about creating "different" roadmaps, but rather creating different roadmap views from the same data. Depending on which information you choose to display, you can build a portfolio roadmap of upcoming work across multiple products. Or you could narrow in on an individual product and its upcoming releases.
The idea is to create different views to tailor your roadmap to specific audiences. This allows you to convey only the information that is most pertinent to who is viewing it — such as executive leaders, product, sales, or customer support.
Does roadmap software integrate with other tools (e.g., Jira and Slack)?
Integrations vary based on roadmapping software. Aha! software integrates with more than 30 popular tools, including Asana, Azure DevOps, GitHub, Jira, Salesforce, Slack, Trello, and Zendesk. We also provide a REST API that can be accessed directly from another web application or from within a JavaScript single-page application.
Is it possible to export roadmaps to different file formats?
The answer here also depends on the roadmapping tool you select. Aha! Roadmaps provides many options for sharing roadmaps and reports. You can share your saved views as webpages, publish them on an Aha! presentation, integrate with Confluence, or export them to an image, PDF, CSV, or Excel file.
Do I need roadmap software with reporting and analytics features?
We think it is wise to track roadmap progress and team performance, measure KPIs, and make data-driven decisions. This is why we built the Aha! reporting engine. You can build countless reports with some basic filters and more advanced filters, too. Data fields stored in your Aha! account can be transformed into compelling visualizations.
Can I set different access levels and permissions to control who can view and edit the roadmap?
Most roadmapping tools offer different access levels based on user type. For instance, there are four primary user permissions levels in Aha! Roadmaps: owner, contributor, reviewer, and viewer. There are also three administrator access roles. Sophisticated user permissions allow you to set the level of access you need — administrators have the ability to align workflows across workspaces, contributors can fully engage with your roadmap, reviewers can provide insights, and viewers can follow along and stay informed.
