What comes to mind when you think of a public roadmap?
Let’s say I’m planning a vacation where I’m going to jump in my car and drive to as many different cities as I can to explore what they have to offer. To execute my trip, I must have a roadmap!
My plan might look like this:
- I should list the cities I want to visit according to their proximity.
- I must make reservations for hotels in each town.
- I have to set a budget for each city and not go beyond it.
As you can see, I need to plan every single detail. From the outside, I have a roadmap, and by following it, I will be able to realize my dream vacation exactly as I want it.
What does a public roadmap mean for the technology world? If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.
Public roadmaps provide a high-level view of the key milestones of a project. This allows you to quickly measure progress and clarify what the team will work toward in the short term and the long term.
Keep reading to discover the importance of public product roadmaps, how you can implement them into your business, and great examples to follow.
Table of Contents
- What Is a Public Roadmap?
- What Is the Main Purpose of Having a Public Roadmap?
- Project Roadmaps vs. Product Roadmaps: What’s the Difference?
- 5 Top Public Product Roadmap Examples
- AnnounceKit’s Roadmap Feature Simplifies the Way You Share Public Project and Product Details
What Is a Public Roadmap?
A public roadmap is an action plan that guides the target for the relevant company or SaaS tool. It can be defined as a digital document showing the progress and results achieved by an organization in a given time period. Important milestones are set to reach a goal and progress can be tracked through these points.
A public roadmap defines an organization’s overall goals and strategies, including its:
- Strategic priorities
- Key milestones
- Expected results; and
- Tactics
It helps managers run their organizations effectively by giving direction to employees. This helps them know where they are going and how to get there. It also helps them anticipate potential problems before they arise.
Should My Company Have a Public Roadmap?
Absolutely! A public roadmap is a great way to keep track of what a company is working on, identify progress being made, and identify whether work aligns with the overall strategy and vision.
Thanks to the public roadmap, problems can be easily detected at certain stages and work can be revised as needed.
What Is the Main Purpose of Having a Public Roadmap?
Roadmaps allow everyone on the team to act as one body. Different disciplines and units adopt a common understanding and continue to work in line with the focused target. The main purpose is to follow progress and share the same understanding.
Having a public roadmap that everyone can follow makes it easy to quickly update tasks and focus on the new version of the project when critical changes need to be made while projects are in progress.
Public roadmap tools also contribute positively to the evaluation of projects. With the overview, project stakeholders can easily monitor their performance.
One of the most important points is to include milestones for progress instead of unnecessarily long information on the roadmap. This will help keep your audience focused on exactly what lies ahead.
Public roadmap tools ensure that all team members in a project or SaaS product move along the targeted path in the same line in terms of goals and time. In addition, teams can be directed in a new direction very quickly and content can be easily updated when a change in focus is required.
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Project Roadmaps vs. Product Roadmaps: What’s the Difference?
Although all roadmaps basically fulfill the same function, they can be divided into two camps in terms of some features. There are two kinds of roadmaps; project roadmaps and product roadmaps. Let’s examine the differences between these.
Project Roadmaps
A project roadmap is a plan for how to get from point A to point B.
It has a specific start and end date. It also has milestones that define how many tasks have been completed by the due date. When all stages are completed, the project is completed.
The success of a project is measured by how well the objectives are achieved. The project roadmap is also very important for tracking this progress.
Another contribution of the project roadmap is to allow tasks to be listed and prioritized in order of time and importance.
Product Roadmaps
Unlike project roadmaps, product roadmaps are open-ended. Because development continues all the time.
Details on the roadmap are constantly updated. You should update the roadmap as feedback is gathered, as other products in the industry add new features, or as you develop new features yourself.
Prioritization for tasks may vary depending on the importance of features to be developed or their potential for user adoption.
Success can be measured by how close the product is to the target point.
Also, if you’re wondering what else you can do to help your SaaS company with product management, check out this article!
5 Top Public Product Roadmap Examples
Here are some of our current favorite product roadmaps and what we like about them.
#1: Slack
Slack has used Trello (whom you’ll see later in our list) to build a roadmap that’s simple, straightforward, and easy for users to understand.
#2: GitHub
GitHub had the great idea to organize their roadmap by quarters. This helps users get a clearer view of what to expect and when. It’s very detailed and has a key to help users understand the references.
#3: Loom
Loom’s roadmap is simple and straightforward. There’s not a lot of information for users to wade through, which makes it easier to understand.
They split features by themes so users can focus on what they’re interested in. Note the use of tabs, which can help everyone easily see what’s coming soon, what’s still under construction, and what has already been launched.
#4: Trello
Trello uses its own product to create engaging public roadmaps with colorful images and tons of information about previous releases. Their latest version also has filtering capabilities so users can see exactly what they want.
#5: Lasso
Lasso aims to support transparent product development for all users. They streamline the feedback process and update all stakeholders as products are updated.
AnnounceKit’s Roadmap Feature Simplifies the Way You Share Public Project and Product Details
At AnnounceKit, we decide what features we can improve by following the expectations of our business clients and their users with different metrics.
Thanks to AnnounceKit, our clients can share their completed developments or important news with their users. With the Roadmap feature, we are expanding the product cycle a little more and can share the details of the planned and currently working projects.
Thanks to the roadmap, we are able to share new features that are planned and worked on with our users.
AnnounceKit business clients will be able to share their project details with their users on the roadmap, just as we shared them. The roadmap will be a visual representation of all work.
By creating a roadmap and sharing it with project members, SaaS companies can avoid miscommunication and increase overall project success rates, giving shared understanding every step of the way.
If you’re ready to take the next step and use all the tools we provide to make SaaS businesses better, including the Roadmap feature, contact us today to get started.
Quick Setup, Easy to Use, and Many Integrations
Manage your product announcements from a single place and easily distribute them
across multiple channels.
