If you’re planning a big trip, you wouldn’t just jump in your car and start driving — right? You need some sort of map to help you get where you’re going as efficiently as possible.
The same is true for your SaaS business.
Public roadmaps provide a high-level view of the key milestones of a project that allow you to quickly measure progress and clarify your team’s short-term and long-term goals. Proper use of public roadmaps allows you to chart a course showing employees and users exactly where you’re going.
Keep reading to discover the importance of public product roadmaps, their top benefits, and great examples to follow.
Table of Contents
- What Is a Public Roadmap?
- Top Benefits of Using a Product Roadmap
- What Should a Product Roadmap Look Like?
- 15 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 a valuable document, often used by SaaS companies, that outlines both recently released product features and those that a company plans to develop in the future. The best roadmap helps you demonstrate how you’re setting important milestones and allows users to track progress.
A public roadmap defines an organization’s overall goals and strategies, including its:
- Strategic priorities
- Key breakthroughs
- Expected results
- Overarching tactics
Public roadmaps allow managers to run their organizations effectively by directing employees and informing users. This helps them know where they are going and how to get there. It also helps everyone involved 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.
Product roadmaps are also crucial for companies that want to maintain transparency with their customers. These tools provide a way for businesses to communicate their plans for upcoming releases, fostering meaningful interactions with customers to enhance trust and transparency.
Top Benefits of Using a Product Roadmap
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 time and goals. In addition, teams can be sent in a new direction very quickly and content can be easily updated when a change in focus is required.
Some of the specific benefits of using product roadmaps include:
- Connecting product teams and users – Public roadmaps are just one of the ways you can collect valuable feedback from users. How are customers reacting to a proposed feature? You can use this information to guide your path.
- Generating buzz – Public roadmaps can be a great marketing tool because they can get prospective and existing users excited about your product. If people are waiting for a specific feature or looking for something your competitors don’t have, these tools let them know.
- Demonstrating transparency – If you’re willing to show your users, investors, and other stakeholders what’s going on every step of the way with a public roadmap, they’re more likely to trust you.
- Managing expectations – Presenting clear development plans and progress through a public roadmap ensures everyone is on the same page regarding timelines and deliverables.
- Increasing customer engagement – Statistics show that engaged customers spend more money, and public roadmaps invite users to get more active with your brand. When your plan shows that you’re acting on customer feedback, they’ll continue to provide it, creating a positive cycle of engagement.
What Should a Product Roadmap Look Like?
The most effective public roadmaps contain some combination of the following features:
- Basic information – Create a generalized view of prioritized features and user feedback to keep customers interested in what’s to come.
- Simple framework – Your roadmap should be straightforward and easy to read while still containing pertinent information.
- Aesthetic design – While the basic information is the most important component, you still want to create something your customers will enjoy looking at.
- Communication support – Provide easy ways for all stakeholders to give their feedback and prioritize concerns.
AnnounceKit has a variety of tools to help SaaS companies communicate product updates and news to their customers, increase feature adoption, and build customer trust.
Quick Setup, Easy To Use, and Many Integrations
Manage your product announcements from a single place and easily distribute them
across multiple channels
15 Fantastic Public Roadmap Examples
Here are some of our current favorite product roadmaps and what we like about them. You can use this list to get ideas when creating your own public roadmaps!
#1: Slack
Slack has a public roadmap that’s simple, straightforward, and easy for users to understand. It has a section that fully explains what customers are looking at and includes short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals as well as features that have already been released.
#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 interests them most. 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 find exactly what they want.
#5: Lasso
Lasso wants to support transparent product development for all users. They streamline the feedback process and update all stakeholders as products are updated.
#6: Buffer
Buffer gives users a clear view of what they’re working on and what’s to come with four categories:
- Exploring
- In Progress
- Done!
- Leaving It for Now
They also have a handy guide instructing customers on the best ways to use the roadmap.
#7: ClickUp
This visually appealing roadmap helps ClickUp users see what’s coming throughout the year and gives recaps of past improvements.
#8: Monzo
Monzo believes that a company can only improve if it shares developments with its community and gathers feedback as it builds. This public roadmap offers extra information about stretch goals and gives live updates about what’s happening right now with the product.
#9: Channex
Channex uses its public roadmap to show ideas and plans that affect all users and clearly labels which category of service they fall under.
#10: Gorgias
Gorgias adds images to customer ideas that have made it to the planned phase to keep things more engaging. They also encourage feedback by allowing users to upvote features they’re working on.
#11: Attendify
The focus of Attendify’s public roadmap is to unlock the value of event engagement data. Because data is such an important component of this platform, they’re sure to share what they’re researching, and they estimate that around 20% of these features will actually be built.
#12: Courier
Courier has created a roadmap with eye-catching images and a great level of detail to go along with recently released and upcoming features. They also divide these snippets into categories for easier management and user access.
#13: Eden
Eden believes that no detail is too small to share with its users. This may be one of the most complex public roadmaps you’ll see, but the company also added a separate Ideas suggestion where users can upvote suggested features to add an additional element of organization.
#14: ArborXR
Since ArborXR helps users manage AR and VR content, you can imagine that its customers appreciate a highly visual public roadmap. These updates feature impactful screenshots with just the right amount of meaningful detail to keep users informed. They also tend to put the same features in multiple categories to make sure they’re fully visible to anyone using them.
#15: SPARK
The SaaS-based lending platform SPARK prefers to keep its public roadmap simple and clear. They also allow you to subscribe to specific updates you’re most interested in so you can follow their progress.
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 and applying a variety of metrics.
AnnounceKit makes it easy for SaaS businesses to share their completed developments or important news with users. Our public roadmap feature can help you disseminate details about what you’re currently working on and what’s coming next.
Here’s an example of how we might use a roadmap to share planned new features with our users, creating a visual representation of our work.
By creating a roadmap and sharing it with project members, SaaS companies can avoid miscommunication and increase overall project success rates, creating 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 public 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
