16 product roadmap templates
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Every product manager needs a product roadmap — if not several. Product roadmaps are multipurpose visual tools. One can tell a compelling story of achieving your product goals. Another might detail the features you are building for customers. And another yet can align your agile development team on priorities. Together, these product roadmaps paint a complete picture of your product plans.
Having multiple product roadmap views helps you communicate the right information to the right audience. But building and maintaining them can become tedious. This is where product roadmap templates come in — making it simple to visualize product goals and initiatives, planned work, and your delivery timeline in minutes.
In this guide, you will find 16 downloadable Excel and PowerPoint roadmap templates to customize for your needs. These stand-alone product roadmap templates are great for small teams and do not require special tools. But as your products and processes evolve, you may find that roadmapping software provides a more robust and flexible option for building roadmaps that are automatically updated and connected to your strategy.
Build beautiful product roadmaps
An example of a dynamic product roadmap created in Aha! Roadmaps.
If you are just getting started with roadmapping, check out our introductory product roadmap guides and FAQs:
When you are ready to dive in and build a product roadmap, explore the different types of product roadmap templates below:
Epic roadmap templates
Many product teams use epics to categorize features and plan large bodies of work that span multiple releases. Epic roadmaps are useful for communicating these broader updates to leadership teams and other stakeholders.
The epic roadmap templates below offer two ways to visualize your epics over time. You can customize the timelines to fit your needs, use markers to indicate releases or milestones, and change colors to indicate groupings or statuses.
Feature roadmap templates
Feature roadmaps are more detailed — showing a zoomed-in timeline and discrete pieces of product functionality. This type of roadmap is useful when you need to communicate the details of near-term product plans to your product development team.
These roadmap templates show monthly and weekly timelines for individual features. In the first one, you can track the status of each feature by changing the color of the bar. The second template is a simplified view showing notable features that will be delivered each month.
Portfolio roadmap templates
If you manage multiple products, you may want a roadmap that showcases your entire portfolio at once. In this case, try a portfolio roadmap. Portfolio roadmaps display planned releases across multiple products in a single view. This type of roadmap also helps internal teams understand how their plans relate to each other.
The Excel template below shows release timelines and date markers for each product within a portfolio. You can also expand each swimlane and include initiatives for each product. The PowerPoint portfolio roadmap template uses simple swimlanes to show relevant releases for multiple products.
Release roadmap templates
With a release roadmap, you can visually communicate upcoming product releases. Release roadmaps display key activities that must be completed to bring your release to market — such as phases, tasks, and features. Use this type of roadmap when you need to coordinate release efforts with other teams like product marketing, sales, and customer support.
The first release roadmap template uses a Gantt chart to highlight the phases and tasks that make up the overall release plan. The second template shows upcoming releases, planned delivery dates, and the top features that will be included in each release.
Strategy roadmap templates
Your product strategy defines what you want to achieve (your goals) and how you plan to get there (your initiatives). You can visualize both of these strategic elements with the help of a roadmap — giving you a big-picture view of your path to product success.
Goals roadmap templates
A goals roadmap is ideal for sharing an overview of your goals and your planned timeline for reaching them. This helps to rally your team around your overarching objectives and provides context for what needs to be accomplished and when.
The roadmap templates below give you two different ways to visualize your goals. The first template shows a timeline for completing individual goals. The second goals roadmap template shows how releases for a portfolio of products contribute to your goals over time.
Initiatives roadmap templates
Initiatives represent the high-level efforts needed to achieve your goals. Choose an initiatives roadmap to provide progress updates to leadership and other stakeholders — and to help internal teams understand how their work contributes to the overall strategy that drives the business forward.
The first template shows a timeline for completing different initiatives and the goals they support. The next one goes a level deeper and shows how specific product releases across your portfolio contribute to business initiatives.
Agile product roadmap templates
If your product development team follows agile practices, your product roadmap might look a little different. Agile product teams often use elements like themes, user stories, and tasks to structure their work. This structure can carry over to your agile roadmap.
For example, instead of organizing by initiatives and releases, the agile roadmap template below displays strategic themes and epics. The swimlanes show how effort aligns with strategy. If you do not subscribe to a specific methodology, this is a good agile roadmap template to begin with. You will also find templates specific to scrum, kanban, and SAFe® below.
Scrum product roadmap template
This scrum roadmap template is designed for engineering teams that follow scrum methodology. It shows where specific user stories fit within upcoming sprints. This simple roadmap is helpful for sharing development progress updates and communicating when new functionality will be demoed for stakeholders.
Kanban product roadmap template
If your team follows kanban methodology, this roadmap template might look familiar — it resembles a kanban board. While kanban boards are used to monitor work in progress, this kanban roadmap template portrays a long-range view. Use this template when you need to set expectations for internal and external stakeholders without committing to a specific timeframe.
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) product roadmap template
This SAFe® roadmap template will help you visualize your program increment (PI) milestones and objectives over a six-month time frame. SAFe® roadmaps offer visibility into current PI deliverables and forecasted PIs. It also helps to ensure that near-term plans align with overall business priorities before PIs are committed.
Each of these product roadmap templates offers a good starting point for visualizing your product plans. All you have to do is download and go. But when you need to build beautiful, dynamic roadmaps in seconds and collaborate with teammates in real time, try Aha! Roadmaps. With Aha! Roadmaps you can set strategy, prioritize features, and share visual plans all in one place — so you can deliver the most product value.
Frequently asked questions about product roadmaps
What is a product roadmap?
A product roadmap is a visualization of your product plans — from your strategic goals and initiatives down to individual product features. Product roadmaps indicate where your product is headed, your timeline, and the work required to get there.
Product managers use product roadmaps to communicate progress and priorities. Roadmaps are essential visual tools in presentations to internal teams or external stakeholders, like partners or customers. A solid product roadmap also helps product teams assess how new requests for functionality align with the product's strategic direction and work that is already planned.
What are the most common types of product roadmaps?
Product teams rely on different types of product roadmaps to present information in varying levels of detail. Some focus on product initiatives or big efforts that support overall goals. Others zero in on the status of epics or features. The right product roadmap to build depends on your audience and the information you want to communicate.
The five most common types of product roadmaps are:
Epics roadmap: Groups features together to help you plan and organize large bodies of upcoming work.
Features roadmap: Communicates the timeline and details of new product functionality.
Portfolio roadmap: Shows planned releases across multiple products.
Release roadmap: Displays cross-functional release activities including what needs to be done when and who is responsible for delivery.
Strategy roadmap: Visualizes progress against business or product goals and the initiatives you are working on.
What elements are included on a product roadmap?
A roadmap typically includes the following components:
Product goals
Strategic initiatives
Key releases
Features or feature sets (epics)
Overall timeline
Visual elements (e.g., colors and swimlanes)
What are swimlanes on a product roadmap?
Swimlanes on a product roadmap are visual representations of different groups of data. For example, you might use swimlanes to display all of the features that make up a release.
How often should you update your product roadmap?
Product roadmaps are dynamic. As your plans change, so should your roadmap. How often you update your roadmap is up to you — but it is important that your product roadmap reflects current goals and progress. This keeps the team aligned on priorities and promotes transparent communication. The most efficient way to do this is by using purpose-built software that automatically integrates strategic planning with roadmapping. That way you can be sure your product plans are always up to date.
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