What is an IT Roadmap & Why does your business need one?

Keeping your roadmap separate from other planning materials such as backlogs or customer requests helps you maintain your strategic focus. This visualization shows all the work the team must do to roll out new integrations — across architecture, services, infrastructure, and DevOps. The window displays more information about the “new data center setup” release. Each of the five columns shows a high-level epic that the development team is working on — along with key details such as corresponding goals and statuses. A portfolio roadmap shows planned releases across multiple groups or offerings. The blue and green bars below represent the two different products .

It provides a view of the milestones that need to be reached to support a business change. An IT project roadmap is a strategic, big-picture overview of the key steps of a project. Rather than focus on specific nuances, a project roadmap conveys the key milestones and goals of a project. However, rather than being focused on the strategic goals of the organization, it more closely resembles your organizational structure.

Types of IT Roadmaps

This is characterized by a combination of tangible and intangible attributes . Answer 5 short questions and we will send a custom report with actionable insights and specific actions you can take to build a stronger brand. Agile methodology, you’ll know exactly how important a roadmap can be. In fact, without a roadmap, it can be almost impossible to get anything constructive done at all. It goes without saying that most modern businesses are built on a foundation of IT infrastructure.

Indeed, businesses all over the world use our web-based roadmap software to create their organizations’ marketing plan, IT strategy, and others. A roadmap is a strategic plan that defines a goal or desired outcome and includes the major steps or milestones needed to reach it. If roadmaps are visual timelines, then including exact dates is a must, right? While some teams commit to delivering on specific days, others choose to plan in broader time frames — weeks, months, or quarters.

Know who your audience is for your roadmap and make sure you choose a roadmap that aligns with their interests. Consider using Saint Louis’s roadmap next time you are presenting your strategic plan to an executive committee or board of directors. The technology roadmap lets you see a great deal of information at-a-glance. In our example above you can tell that the Model 5000 switches are being phased out in FY20. What Product Managers Need to Know About Security Enterprise companies that prioritize product manager security knowledge as a foundation for leading a product team can ensure a safer… Powering the grid with intermittent wind and solar is a disaster waiting to happen.

What is a Technology Roadmap? – IT Roadmap Guide 2022

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• Jira roadmap integration Connect your high-level strategy with daily planning by syncing your data between Roadmunk and Jira.
• It shares general plans with external audiences such as partners and advisory boards.
• Therefore, you’ll need a roadmap tool that works the way your clients and colleagues do, and the resulting roadmaps are easy to view, edit, download, or share by anyone, with their usual office tools.
• Colors – assign different colors to different work components to better differentiate stages of your initiative and communicate them visually.
• When properly executed, IT Roadmaps can be helpful guides for businesses.

Which metrics indicate that you are solving a problem most effectively? For example, your business could increase the average order size to five products per customer. The purpose of this step is to measure success and to update your roadmap as necessary. This is the phase in which you conduct research and build context around the product you are developing. It allows everyone to ask questions, voice concerns, and give feedback. Micro views all at once — so you can see the overall status of your technology infrastructure or the fine detail.

The role of a software roadmap

Here are 6 better alternatives, that are guaranteed to make you ditch your Excel roadmaps. It may seem simple, but every new tool a business uses requires staff training, an update plan, data migration from previous systems… If this sounds like a headache, you’re not wrong; but with a software roadmap, you can relieve that stress and become the master of your company’s software solutions. 4.8 trillion dollars by the year 2021, technology really needs to be at the heart of all modern businesses. And a technology roadmap essentially sets the stage for any of a company’s digital operations.

No matter what your roadmap looks like, always strive to make it easy to understand. It should be accurate, up-to-date, actionable, and relevant for the intended audience. This video shows how to create roadmaps for your team using Aha! Having this type of plan in place is a key component to creating an edge and getting a leg-up on the competition.

Whether that’s the hardware staff use to do their jobs, or the cloud-based software solutions used to manage communications, productivity, and so on — it’s all part of that IT infrastructure. Afidence’s team of expert consultants can guide you along a new path following the roadmap of success. Contact us today or schedule a complimentary consultation to find out how we can help you stress less and achieve more for your business. No matter what business you’re in, today you’re in the technology business. That’s good news, because technology can help you find new opportunities, optimize your operations and so much more.

Most work is collaborative nowadays and you’re always in close contact with a client or team. Therefore, you’ll need a roadmap tool that works the way your clients and colleagues do, and the resulting roadmaps are easy to view, edit, download, or share by anyone, with their usual office tools. Translate product goals and initiatives into features and requirements. It is important to note that there will be overlaps across these roadmaps. This is why it is valuable to create a roadmap for your entire IT portfolio so you can align plans and map a shared strategic direction for the entire department. Everything IT does to support the business requires anticipating what the company will need to compete and innovate.

When you develop a new product, you must begin with the ideation phase and define the minimum viable product for people to use and test its functionality. MVPs are integral to product roadmaps, and their priorities must be clearly defined. During this stage, you break down big epics into validated tasks, balance short- and long-term goals, and present your roadmap to your team and stakeholders. Once you’ve added each item to your technology roadmap, airfocus will set to work reviewing each one and assigning a score.

Who can use a technology roadmap?

There is likely an extensive list of tasks, issues, and problems that require your attention. Assess each component to determine if it provides value, has an owner, and still fits within the overall strategy what is an IT roadmap for the product. For instance, to increase revenue, your strategy could start focusing on top-of-funnel users, upselling existing customers, or even reactivating churned customers to increase revenue.

It may include, for example, a timeline of digital campaigns and their goals. This article will discuss the different types of product roadmaps, why you should have one, how to create one, and examples of good product roadmaps. In addition to this core set of features, the team at airfocus understands that, in order for a roadmapping tool to be engaging, it actually needs to be fun to use. In fact, the technology roadmap is often a useful way to track and align the overall strategic goals of a company. An IT Roadmap is an overall plan to help bring your technological investments in line with your other business goals.

Evaluate your product roadmap.

Product roadmaps are available for various audiences, activities, and projects. Agile and waterfall are two of the most popular approaches to product management. The term epic refers to a significantuser story that cannot be fulfilled within one release. The work is often broken down into more minor features or user stories that can be delivered incrementally. Don’t forget that, while our templates are pretty cool, there’s no limit to what you can achieve when you really dig into the airfocus feature set. First up, log in to airfocus as normal and apply the template you found at the link above.

Before the release of 2022.3, we published our first-ever public roadmap and announced what we would be working on. The feedback on the blog, on Reddit, and elsewhere has been very helpful – thank you very much. Here are the answers to the most frequently asked question about roadmaps. Symbols – subtly convey extra details with shapes, arrows, and other custom elements. For example, you can use a diamond to indicate important milestones or an arrow/line/connector to highlight task dependencies.

Input and participation from different parts of the organization (e.g., marketing, R&D, the strategic business units) with different planning horizons and perspectives. An IT Roadmap is a tool for setting, ensuring, and communicating the direction of an initiative. It ensures that the project team remains on course the deliver the value promised. Therefore, an IT Roadmap complements an IT Strategy and IT Strategic Plan.

How to Create an IT Roadmap

Company leaders, teammates, and customers are counting on you. Share what you will deliver and when, so everyone can follow through on the plan. Understanding these challenges will help you overcome them when creating your own IT roadmap – rather than backtracking when the process becomes unmanageable. A roadmap can be a way to shift towards a more proactive business model.

Anyone with access to the roadmap can quickly understand the plans and rally behind what you will achieve together. Plans are organized into goals, initiatives, epics, and features — with a timeline for releases at the top. Maybe you are starting a business, building a new product, or leading a cross-functional project. You need a bold vision for what you want to achieve and a solid plan for how you will turn your aspirations into reality. A roadmap also evolves in the sense that the process does not stop when the document is published.

For teams that want to get really granular with the administration of their IT system, the timeline view (Figure 2.) is recommended. The timeline view makes it easy to visualize the timing and resourcing for the technology resources in the pipeline. For example, a company anticipated growing by 20 employees in a year but increased by 35 employees instead. That changes their IT roadmap projection and goals, and it changes recommendations for new systems and technology to support that growth. You should be practical when you set goals, allocate a budget, and most importantly, define timelines.

A roadmap aligns everyone on the team around the goals and plans, providing a clear direction and a way to quickly view priorities. The roadmap is your foundation — it is the “why” behind the “how.” This roadmap shows how the strategic marketing initiatives map to the overall goals, along with a timeline for completion.

When it comes to understanding the role of the roadmap, perhaps the most important concept to remember is that it is a strategic document, not a document that captures all of a plan’s details. It is true that a roadmap is a commitment — it captures what you are working towards over the next quarter, six months, year, or longer. But since you typically create a roadmap at the beginning of your planning process, priorities may shift.

Those themes could be product goals or epics, which are groups of related features. The date range will depend on how an agile development team works, but it is not common to see an agile roadmap expand beyond a quarter at a time. The flexibility of agile workflows makes it easier to keep the roadmap contained to just a few sprints or iterations. Whatfix’s digital adoption platform enables organizations to create in-app training and support content to drive IT roadmap adoption, support digital transformation, and uncover true ROI. Whatfix helps ensure your users won’t get stuck trying to use your IT roadmap and won’t overlook vital features. A timeline roadmap helps to communicate project priorities to stakeholders and sets the right expectations as to how much time each step should take.