There are a lot of different moving parts when it comes to planning a project. From big-picture items like your overall budget and timeline to more minute details like what software you’ll need to purchase and which subcontractors you’ll hire, it can be tough to keep everything straight.
That’s where roadmapping tools come in. Roadmapping tools help you break down your project into smaller milestones and tasks, then assign responsibility for each. This helps you keep track of your progress and can be helpful when it comes time to delegate tasks or troubleshoot problems.
While several different roadmap tools are available, we’ve compiled a list of our favorites to help you get started.
What Is a Roadmap Tool and What Are the Benefits?
Roadmaps are tools used by product managers to get an overview of their product strategy and direction. They also help PMs ensure that their team is aligned and focused on the right things by plotting out the features, release schedule, and dependencies.
Roadmaps also help PMs communicate their plans to stakeholders and get buy-in for upcoming work. While roadmaps can take many different formats, they all share the same goal: to provide a clear and concise product roadmap overview.
There are many benefits to using roadmaps. First, they help PMs ensure that their team is aligned and focused on the right things. Second, roadmaps help PMs communicate their plans to stakeholders and get buy-in for upcoming work.
Third, roadmaps provide a clear and concise overview of the product roadmap. Fourth, roadmaps help PMs track progress and measure success. Finally, roadmaps can be used to troubleshoot problems and identify areas for improvement.
Roadmaps are a powerful tool for product managers and have many benefits. Roadmaps can significantly impact a product’s success by helping PMs align their team, communicate with stakeholders, and track progress.
Review of the Best Roadmap Tools
Wrike
Best for Task Management
Wrike is a roadmapping tool that helps teams stay organised and on track. It is designed specifically for the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry but can be used by any team that needs to coordinate multiple projects or tasks.
One of the key features of Wrike is its ability to give each team member access to the information they need when needed. This is especially important in industries like SaaS, where multiple instances of the same project or task may appear.
By giving each team member the needed information, Wrike helps teams stay organised and on track. In addition, Wrike’s ability to track progress and give feedback in real-time helps teams optimise their workflow and get the most out of their workday. Overall,
Wrike is an excellent tool for coordinating your team’s work and keeping everyone on the same page.
Features
- Gantt chart for showing activities and tasks.
- List and Kanban View
- Shareable Dashboards
- Custom Workflows
- Interactive Boards for easier communication
- Live Activity Stream to see activities in real-time.
Pros
- Aids in promoting teamwork amongst employees
- Helps save time
- Features a library of ready-made product templates
- It helps to keep everyone on the same track.
Cons
- The amount of detail you can add to your actual roadmap is limited.
Pricing
- Free Plan: Wrike’s free plan includes all the essential features you need for task management, including interactive boards, a live activity stream, and spreadsheet views.
- Professional Plan: It costs $9.80 monthly per user and includes everything in the free plan and extra bonuses like interactive Gantt Charts and shareable dashboards.
- Business Plan: It costs $24.80 monthly per user, and it includes everything in the professional plan and also added extras such as project blueprints, branded workspaces, and Workload charts, among many others.
- Enterprise Plan: this plan is for large teams, and the company will have to contact Wrike for pricing. It offers up to 10GB of storage for each user, audit reports, two-factor authentication, e.t.c.
Asana
Best for Integration
Asana is an excellent tool for creating a multi-view product roadmap, including a Kanban board. Its free Basic plan is feature-rich and perfectly tailored for small businesses. In addition, Asana has a ton of cool integrations that can turn it into a one-stop shop for your product development.
With Asana, you can easily track progress, manage tasks and dependencies, and communicate with your team. Moreover, its powerful search and filtering capabilities make it easy to find the information you need when you need it.
Features
- Kanban Style Board
- Calendar View
- Activity Feeds
- Individual Task List for each user
- Focus mode.
Pros
- It easily integrates with other apps
- Users can easily manage tasks
- It has a user-friendly interface
- Dynamic Reporting
- It is customisable.
Cons
- It has too many features; therefore, there is a learning curve.
Pricing
- Basic Plan: It is free and packed with many features for task management. It includes a calendar view, unlimited tasks, unlimited activity logs, unlimited messages, e.t.c.
- Premium Plan: It costs $10.99 monthly per user, and it includes all the features in the basic plan plus extra add-ons like Forms, Milestones, Workflow Builder, unlimited dashboards e.t.c.
- Business Plan: It costs $24.99 monthly per user, including all the features in the premium plan and other features like portfolios, forms customisation, and branching.
ProdPad
Best Lean Product Roadmap Tool
ProdPad has managed to follow the lean approach by limiting the dissemination of information to only the bare minimum required to complete the project. This has benefits for developers of products who need to understand the attention given to the needs of those who purchase their products.
This tool provides a clear and concise roadmap highlighting the product’s main features and functions. This helps developers to focus on creating a product that meets the needs of their target market.
In addition, ProdPad also allows developers to track the progress of their product development, making it easy to identify any problems that may arise. Thanks to ProdPad, developers can rest assured that they are following a lean and effective product development process.
Features
- AI assistance
- Backlog for workflow management
- Project Portfolio Management
- Lean Roadmaps
- Feedback Management to easily manage feedback from team members.
Pros
- Intuitive interface
- The visualisation chart helps with project prioritisation
- It integrates easily with other workflows.
Cons
- You have to use powerups to access the client feedback features fully
- You might experience difficulty in navigating between designs.
Pricing
- Roadmaps Plan: This plan costs $20 monthly for each user, including portfolio objectives, initiative prioritisation, and the now, next, and later roadmap features.
- Ideas Plan: This costs $20 monthly for each user, including multiple backlog views, idea email dropbox, filtering, voting, and triage features.
- Feedback Plan: This plan costs $20 monthly per user, including a customer feedback portal, similarity matching, feedback email dropbox, e.t.c.
ProductPlan
Best for Ready-to-Use Templates
At its core, ProductPlan is a software designed for groups who need to share multiple roadmaps to ensure everyone is on the same page. The software consolidates data and essential tools into one place so that product development teams can easily access everything they need.
To top it all off, the software comes with a free 14-day trial period so that groups can explore its features without a commitment. In other words, ProductPlan was created to make product development simpler and more efficient– achieving two goals admirably. If your team is looking for a roadmap tool, this is one option worth considering.
Features
- Customisable layouts to choose how you want your layout to look
- Planning Board
- Task Prioritization option so tasks can be carried out according to their priorities.
- Table Layout.
Pros
- Excellent visualisation that allows everyone on the board to see the various stages of the project
- It has a user-friendly interface
- It easily integrates with existing project management tools.
Cons
- It does not allow you to upload a pre-existing spreadsheet to create an initial roadmap
- You must pay for an entire year for the professional and enterprise plans.
Pricing
- Basic Plan: It costs $49 monthly per user and has a 14-day free trial period. It features unlimited reports, a planning board, a table layout, e.t.c.
- Professional Plan: Each user costs $69 per month, but unlike the basic plan, you have to pay for an entire year. It has features like Zapier integrations, Activity metrics, Portfolio View of Roadmaps, etc.
- Enterprise Plan: You have to contact ProductPlan for the pricing. It has features like Launch management, Integration Custom Field Mapping, etc.
Zoho Sprints
Best for Tracking Product Release
Zoho Sprints is a powerful product management tool that enables agile teams to plan, track, and ship the best products possible to their customers. Zoho Sprints makes sprint planning easy with its drag-and-drop planning interface.
Scrum teams can easily move work items from the product backlog to the sprint backlog. The Scrum Board is highly customisable, keeping agile’s pioneering spirit. This tool guides teams through the interdependencies of their release cycles, from planning to deployment.
Product managers can use customisable reports and dashboards to track the progress of their epics, sprints, and releases. Product teams in Zoho Sprints can collaborate within the context of their work, sharing ideas and thoughts in real-time. With Zoho Sprints, product teams have everything they need to build great products.
Features
- Customisable boards
- Zoho has a Marketplace to purchase extra features
- Custom Priority to prioritise tasks in order of importance
- Timesheet Management
- Scrum Board
- Agile Reports.
Pros
- It integrates easily with other tools for a better workflow
- Product developers can use webhooks and APIs to build integrations or browse a growing library of apps on Zoho’s marketplace
- Product managers can use customisable reports and dashboards to track the progress of their epics, sprints, and releases
- It is affordable.
Cons
- Conversions are not optimised for forms
- To get started, a lot of customisation is required.
Pricing
- Free Plan: It is free and accommodates only three users, three projects, and 500MB of storage.
- Starter Plan: It costs $1 monthly per user, and it comes with features like a scrum board, epic management, scrum meetings, project and sprint dashboards, etc
- Elite Plan: It costs $2.5 monthly for each user. It includes features in the starter plan plus work item reminders, checklists, custom priority, and client and vendor portals.
- Premier Plan: It costs $5 monthly for each user. It has features in the elite plan and other core features like groups for users, custom domains, linking work items, etc.
FAQs on the Best Roadmap Tool
Roadmap software is a tool that helps businesses develop and track their plans for the future. It can be used to create high-level roadmap documents that outline the overall direction of a company, or it can be used to create more detailed roadmaps that track specific projects and milestones. Project and product managers typically use roadmap software to ensure they are on track to meet their goals.
What are your company’s long-term goals? How do you map out the steps that will help you achieve them? It’s important to be realistic when creating a roadmap – too often, companies try to accomplish too much and spread themselves thin. Prioritise your goals and focus on the most important initiatives.
To create a strategic roadmap in Excel, start by listing out all of the steps needed to achieve the goal. Then, add details about each step, including who is responsible, when it should be completed, and what dependencies exist. Finally, use conditional formatting to highlight key milestones and identify potential risks. Following these steps, you can create a strategic roadmap to help you achieve your objectives.
There are many different ways to visualise a product roadmap, but some common elements include release schedules, features and functionality, and dependencies. Product timeline visualisation helps to communicate when new features or products will be released. Features and visualisation functionality can help highlight what is delivered in each release.
Preparation for the workshop should include an overview of the plan, facilitation tips, and icebreaker exercises. This document will capture the workshop’s output, including the product vision and roadmap. A marathon brainstorming session is not conducive to good ideas. Follow up with participants after the workshop.
Conclusion
While there are many different types of roadmap tools, the best ones share some key features. They are simple to use yet allow for extensive customization; they are factual and provide all the necessary information without being overwhelming. They are compelling and visually appealing, so users will want to refer to them often.
We’ve looked at five of the best roadmapping tools available today and shared what makes them special They’re all tried and true favorites of ours, and we think they’ll serve you well on your road to success.
Wrike is the best tool for organizations and if you want a multiview roadmap tool, Asana is a perfect choice. ProdPad is a great choice for teams operating with the lean approach, Zoho helps track and ship products to the product owner easily, and ProductPlan is perfect for web development tools.
