What are the benefits of project roadmaps?
Project roadmaps are useful resources that give project managers a blueprint for how they will achieve the goals of a project. By outlining the project goals, you can:
Build a more detailed project work plan
Manage the responsibilities of all your team members
Communicate project status updates with all relevant stakeholders
Once you’ve built the project roadmap, you’ve delivered an effective blueprint to your team members. They can review the project goals, resources, and timelines so they can:
Prepare their work schedules to align with project priorities
Ask the right questions so they understand their assigned tasks
Determine ways they can more efficiently complete their work schedules
Using the project roadmap template, you’ll create greater alignment among your team members and stakeholders. You can duplicate your project roadmap for similar projects and use the learnings from your first project to execute new tasks more efficiently.
When to use the project roadmap template?
A project roadmap template helps you build more effective project management processes. It’s especially useful for:
Communicating goals to your team members
Setting and managing priority tasks
Creating alignment with all stakeholders
Assigning resources to complete project tasks
Improving decision-making using project status reports
Suppose your team has been tasked with developing a new product feature. The goal is to develop a component that will create better customer experiences.
As the project manager, it’s your responsibility to map out how to implement this new development. You must determine if the proposed feature is even feasible, and then develop a work plan to build, test, and release the feature for public use. Therefore, you can use your project roadmap template to:
Document all the relevant market and technical research
Use research trends to prioritize design, testing, and internal feedback
Present the test results and create stakeholder alignment on next steps
Allocate budgets and resources to finalize development and prepare for public release
Manage all milestones and guide the project to complete on time and as expected
The project roadmap template also has a built-in timeline feature, similar to a Gantt tracker. You can use the Gantt tracker to view the full project roadmap before work officially begins. Then, you can loop in your entire team so they understand what phase of the project is happening at what time. This will help them plan their time around the project’s top priorities.
How to use the project roadmap template?
The project roadmap template creates a visual project overview that makes it easier to communicate expectations, milestones, and timelines. Use your project roadmap template to build a high-level project overview and manage the assigned tasks.
Step 1: Review the roadmap, adapt the workflow
The template comes with pre-built vertical sections that map out the workflow. You can adjust the names of each section to whatever you prefer, but try to keep them aligned with the pre-built sections—Planning, Prototype, Testing, Launch, and Completed. This way, you can visualize the full scope of your project roadmap before launch.
Step 2: Break down the workload into tasks
Once you have your sections, you’re ready to create tasks. You can create a new task by clicking the + in any board section.
Remember to use your sections to manage where each task belongs in the project timeline. For example, while developing your new product feature, a task for research or market analysis belongs in the planning stage of your project. A task for stakeholder review belongs in the testing stage of your project, which is only achievable once you have preliminary data to work from.
You can also use your project roadmap template to set priorities for important tasks. Adding tags like ‘Urgent’ and ‘Important’ will help you monitor which tasks should be assigned first. To add a new tag, open your task and click ‘Tags’ > ‘Manage’ > ‘Add Tag’ in the task sidebar.
Step 3: Create checklists for each task
Under each task, you can create checklists to describe all the requirements necessary to complete each task. This gives team members additional clarity so they fully understand the expectations for each task. They can offer feedback and suggest a realistic window of time it will take to complete each item on the checklist. This will help you set realistic targets and timelines as you build out the full project roadmap.
Step 4: Assign task start and end dates
Once you’ve added a task, assign a due date. You must schedule the start and end date of your task to identify when it will be worked on and how much time it should take.
Use the built-in Gantt tracker to view the entire timeline of your team’s collective workflow. By visualizing what tasks will be completed on which dates, it’s easier to assess and assign tasks for new requests that come in later.
Most projects have unexpected pop-ups and discoveries along the way. By visualizing how long each assigned task will take to complete, you can incorporate time to solve those roadblocks and keep the project moving forward. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen at all, but your project roadmap template will prepare you in the event it does.
Step 5: Monitor performance
Monitor progress to ensure tasks are being completed on time. If team members are struggling to complete tasks on time, issues can be addressed directly within the project board. This keeps communications in one place, reducing the potential for misaligned or misunderstood feedback.
For a more granular look at your team’s performance, including task completion rates, you can use MeisterTask’s Reports feature. Use these insights to refine your workflow and help your team to work productively.
Learn more about project management with MeisterTask.
