What is Vendor Risk Management: A Complete Guide + Examples
Product roadmaps aren’t just a list of features or tasks; they serve as strategic plans that chart the course of a product's journey. It guides product managers and owners with high-level vision and step-by-step plans for current and future developments.
Whether you're launching a new feature, entering a different market, or aligning interdepartmental teams toward common goals, product roadmaps are a shared source of truth.
However, creating a descriptive, actionable and flexible roadmap from the ground up can feel like a stretch.
In this article, we’ll share ready-to-use product roadmap examples and templates to help you manage your team and projects.
No matter your team size, industry, or stage in the product life cycle, you'll find valuable product map examples to use.
Let’s dive in!
A product roadmap is a visual guide that outlines a product's vision, direction, purpose, priorities and progress over time. It acts as a blueprint for the team and stakeholders, clarifying what is coming next and ensuring everyone is aligned with the product’s short and long-term strategy.
Product roadmaps can differ drastically between companies due to size, product complexity and industry. Generally, they include vision, direction, key deliverables, milestones, deadlines, resource allocations as well as risk assessments.
Product roadmaps are living documents, meaning they can be modified as market conditions change or new insights emerge.
Product roadmaps come in three types: timeline-based, feature-based and goal-based.
As the name suggests, timeline-based roadmaps organize items on a given timeline. This can include when new features will be released, certain business goals will be reached, or specific tasks have been completed.
Timeline-based roadmaps are suitable for teams that have a clear picture of their deadlines and want to communicate estimated dates for product deliverables.
Here’s a general project timeline Gantt chart template to create your timeline-based roadmap easily.
Creating product roadmaps typically involves the input of multiple stakeholders,` such as product managers, designers, developers, and executives.
With our real-time collaboration feature, multiple project team members can tag other, leave feedback, and resolve or delete comments when the review process is complete. You can also decide who gets to view, comment, or edit your content while getting the vital feedback you need
Apps, websites and tech products benefit from feature-based roadmaps, which prioritize and display the roll-out of new features or enhancements to existing ones.
Instead of setting strict dates, features are plotted sequentially to indicate the next development focus.
Product launch roadmap examples are also feature-based roadmaps. For example, this learning app feature launch roadmap infographic template allows teams to visualize the pre-launch, launch and after-launch phases, making it simple to communicate the process to stakeholders.
Make this template yours with Visme’s drag-and-drop editor to customize the timeline and add details specific to your project.
Unlike timeline or feature-focused roadmaps, goal-based roadmaps are oriented toward achieving specific objectives within a company. These can relate to broad business aims or specific end goals around the user experience or technical performance.
Each goal is linked with a set of features or tasks that contribute towards its achievement, helping teams to understand not just the "what" and "when" but the "why" behind every initiative.
This kind of roadmap is ideal for organizations prioritizing outcomes over outputs.
Use this quarterly goal app roadmap whiteboard template to define goals, high-level features and metrics to measure success across each quarter.
Let’s take a look at some product roadmap examples and templates you can use across various scenarios.
Whether you are an experienced project manager or just diving into the field of product management, Visme has a diverse array of features that enable you to create product roadmaps with utmost ease.
With Visme Whiteboard, you get a dynamic canvas for envisioning and evolving your product roadmap. It aids product managers in crafting comprehensive roadmaps that adapt and grow effortlessly as your needs shift.
In Visme, you can create a visually stunning roadmap and seamlessly integrate live data from other platforms or via manual import and easily shareable roadmap for the entire team.
With Dynamic Fields, you can create variables that will enable you to swiftly make updates across multiple projects from one place in seconds.
With Visme, your roadmap isn’t static; it’s a living, evolving plan that fosters collaboration and clarity at every stage of your product journey.
- Olya, Product Marketing at Visme
Browse a variety of product roadmap examples and templates assembled specially for different use cases.
Marketing roadmaps act as a guide when outlining promotional strategies, timelines and release dates of product features or services.
This flexible marketing roadmap plan highlights a strategic roll-out of various marketing initiatives over a period of time—in this case, quarterly feature releases. It has objectives divided into intuitive sections for month, week, goal and activities. This feature encourages clear communication between marketing managers and product managers. The lively color palette and distinct icons make this roadmap visualization a breeze.
Visme's Brand Wizard ensures your business documents maintain a consistent image by automatically incorporating your specific fonts, colors and logo. Just input your website URL, and Visme will pull these branding elements directly from your site and save them in your brand kit.
Expansion roadmap plans are essential for businesses eyeing new markets or increasing their product's reach. This template is one of the best agile product roadmap examples you can use.
It helps product teams set targets for each quarter and month and section them into specific business needs. These can range from customer experience and business model to product development. Personalize your roadmap and make it engaging with icons, stock photos and videos from the extensive Visme library.
Color-code the sections to emphasize different priorities or stages in the roadmap. This level of customization allows teams to grasp complex strategies at a glance.
Without continual product refinement, businesses grind to a halt. Spotting innovations and improving existing features is a must for maintaining a competitive edge. This product improvement roadmap template helps with that.
Whether bug fixes, enhancements, or feature upgrades, it's designed to streamline the planning and execution process for software engineers and product teams.
This template is divided into month-wise sections and contains:
Teams can also use it for internal discussions, aligning cross-departmental objectives and tracking the progress of each initiative throughout the software development cycle.
Have data stored in online survey tools like Typeform, Jotform, SurveyMonkey, or Formstack? Visme’s integration feature lets you embed them directly onto any Visme project—or pull in data from existing content.
Product updates are necessary to improve and keep the user base engaged continuously.
This practical roadmap template lets you manage and showcase a diverse range of updates across multiple products.
It includes detailed timelines, categorized update types and priority levels, helping product teams concentrate on high-impact improvements while keeping all team members up-to-date.
Have too many product updates across different products and you must manually edit each roadmap? Hop onto the data tab and easily add custom fields using the dynamic field tool.
Each set of target audiences is unique, so you need to tailor your product to address their frustrations. This stunning customer journey roadmap splits the customer journey into four stages: awareness, discovery, application, offer and acceptance. It is packed with amazing visuals, a neat layout and a professional yet bright color palette.
For product teams, this roadmap template highlights critical touchpoints where customer interaction might tip the balance toward a successful sale or further engagement with the product.
Marketing teams can gather insights to design campaigns that connect with potential customers at just the right moment.
Not sure how to draft campaigns that align with the customer journey? Visme’s AI writer can generate killer copy or proofread existing content. When you have the first draft ready, you can then refine it further.
Whether in beta testing or full production, this feature-based release roadmap is one of the top software product roadmap examples. It allows teams to organize and know exactly when each feature is slated for launch. This design is easy to understand with clear visuals and readable font for everyone involved.
Give priority to urgent fixes, security patches, or new enhancements with clear labels for a seamless update process. Or use a specific label for each team, be it development, product, or marketing—the choice is yours.
The best part? You can share this roadmap online with your user community and set clear expectations regarding new features. Opt for an online link or download it in PDF, PPTX, MP4, JPG or PNG formats. Take it a notch higher and track who has opened the roadmap, how much of it was viewed and where they spent the most time with our robust analytics tool.
Design upgrades can feel overwhelming, but not with this structured UX/UI upgrade roadmap template. It offers a visual timeline for rolling out design improvements every quarter. Efficient for product designers and stakeholders, this roadmap has sections for:
For instance, in Q1, the focus might be on user personas and empathy mapping. Later, the focus may shift to prototyping various user interfaces before the final deployment in Q4.
It includes precise timestamps and a soothing color palette to streamline communication and execution across the board.
Mapping out every release phase—from market analysis to the official launch—ensures a successful product launch.
This weekly product release roadmap template is designed to outline all necessary steps with a clear weekly timeline. It's ideal for keeping track of benchmarks, such as:
It helps coordinate activities between departments—be it product development, quality assurance or sales. In addition, it facilitates a quick response to unforeseen challenges and opportunities during the sprint.
Make your roadmap engaging using Visme's animation and interactive features. Add dropdown menus, clickable icons, pop-ups and hover effects to provide additional information. Better yet, incorporate hyperlinks to external sources or internal documents to help users access relevant information quickly.
As a product manager or owner, it can be helpful to create a visual plan of your daily activities. This roadmap template allows you to do that in style.
With lively colors, innovative shapes, and vivid content blocks, this creative roadmap infographic makes strategy and personal planning engaging.
Use this as a guide to schedule your day, week, or month. You can also adapt it to outline the phases of your next project and share it with colleagues and teams.
If you’re collaborating with your team on the design, you can manage roles, tasks, progress, deadlines and corrections all in one place with Visme’s workflow feature.
Got a startup idea in mind? This detailed infographic template outlines key phases to focus on, from concept development to marketing strategies. The layout guides future entrepreneurs through the essential steps for a successful launch, covering areas like:
With vivid graphics and an intuitive design, streamlining the journey from idea to market becomes more manageable for aspiring founders and their teams.
Check out our extensive list of product roadmap templates for more new product roadmap examples.
Perfect for project leaders, this template provides an immersive and interactive timeline of a project’s lifecycle. It allows for seamless tracking of both minor and major milestones, overall progress, and risk assessments.
When it comes to aesthetics, this template boasts eye-catching colors with visuals that pop, guiding the viewer's gaze across various project stages.
Make it more interactive using Visme's various features like dropdowns, popups and hover effects.
Employee training is critical, and having a timeline to guide you can ease the whole process.
Designed for HR professionals, instructional designers, and training facilitators, this infographic lays out a visual syllabus. The roadmap is divided into four phases and covers everything from entry-level assessment to certification.
Share with higher management or department heads to coordinate skilled learning efforts company-wide.
You can also make use of Visme's customization features to enhance the template's efficacy. For example, allow trainers to hyperlink learning resources or incorporate pop-up windows for elaborative text.
This software development timeline template is useful for product developers to track key phases from ideation to launch.
Packed with crisp visuals and amazing colors, each block in the template represents a month of work where you can denote activities and milestones. This can help to prevent scope creep or development delays.
For example, you could develop APIs in June, while instrumental bug fixes may be scheduled for August. This helps ensure transparency and proper communication among teams about their distinct roles and deadlines.
Download this roadmap as a PDF and in your weekly email circulars, internal reports, or company presentations for quick reference.
Now that we've looked at various roadmaps and customer journey map templates, we must explore best practices for product roadmaps.
This section explores real-life, public examples to better understand the strategic application of roadmaps in different scenarios.
Buffer is a social media management tool that helps users schedule posts, analyze performance, and manage all their accounts from a centralized platform.
They maintain a public product roadmap that outlines planned features, enhancements, and bug fixes, showing a dedication to transparency and open communication with their customers.
The roadmap promises what’s to come while offering users the opportunity to give feedback and understand how their needs are being addressed. Importantly, Buffer's open approach underpins building trust within their community.
The key takeaway here is that embracing customer input and enabling productive dialogue helps you create a roadmap that's dynamic and aligned with user expectations. It also boosts user loyalty and leads to a better product that resonates with your user base.
Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind Firefox, shared its roadmap publicly in an effort to increase competitiveness and relevance.
For example, Mozilla outlined broad areas such as improved security features and novel browser functionalities. With this clear roadmap, users could follow along and witness the evolution of the product.
This visibility has multiple advantages, including the ability to crowdsource ideas, identify issues early and mobilize the community to help test new features.
The roadmap served as a developmental guide and platform to engage and drive user participation. Mozilla was able to draw on its extensive user community for testing and ideas.
This fantastic initiative also enabled Mozilla to get feedback and suggestions from its users, making sure that they are always providing the best possible experience to their community.
GitHub is a cloud-based hosting service that revamps the way teams build software.
GitHub mentions, “Our product roadmap is where you can learn about what features we're working on, what stage they're in, and when we expect to bring them to you.”
Its transparent approach to sharing future updates and plans makes it unique.
Every item on the roadmap is an issue, with a label that indicates the release phase, feature area, feature, product SKU, deployment models and shipping status.
Labels provide clarifications about the roadmap’s direction and details. This helps users get informed about every development stage for a more inclusive decision-making process.
Back in 2016, Slack—a communication platform used across businesses—adopted a transparent approach to its product roadmap.
Slack used a public Trello board to share its product roadmap. It included items like new product features, improvements, and bug fixes.
Each card represented a planned update, with details about its status, type, and expected release date. Slack users were then able to follow the progress in real-time.
This transparency in roadmap planning sets a forward-thinking example for other tech companies.
Let's take a look at frequently asked questions related to product roadmaps.
A product roadmap is a strategic plan that details a product’s vision, direction, deliverables, and progress over time.
It includes critical milestones, feature releases, priorities, resource allocation, timelines and market and customer requirements.
This document helps everyone—from team members to stakeholders—understand the why and how behind a product and its expected evolution.
Roadmaps are customer-driven and often evolve based on user feedback and competitive research.
An excellent product roadmap is transparent, flexible and up-to-date, communicating the strategy to all involved parties. It outlines what the team is working on and aligns with the organization’s overarching goals.
A good product roadmap should have these characteristics
A product roadmap and a Gantt chart depict project timelines and details, but a product roadmap is broader in scope and more strategic. It provides a higher-level visual snapshot of a product’s trajectory rather than the fine-grained information of task-by-task progress.
A Gantt chart is more tactical and is often used for managing the project’s day-to-day execution, showing the start and finish dates of individual tasks.
While a product roadmap provides a strategic overview of product development, it is not an exhaustive list of tasks, a detailed project plan, or a substitute for real-time project tracking tools. It is also not a technical specification document or a feature backlog.
A roadmap is a living document subject to change and should not be confused with a fixed contract or set of unchangeable rules.
A strategy is a high-level plan that outlines the objectives and goals of a product. In contrast, the roadmap is the document that lays out the steps and timeline required to realize that strategic vision or bring the product to life.
While product strategy details the target audience, value proposition, competitive advantages, and business goals, a product roadmap visualizes the timeline and actionable steps required to execute that strategy.
While both are complementary, the strategy informs decisions and direction, whereas the roadmap communicates the specific actions needed to implement that direction.
For example, a product strategy might identify the need to penetrate a new market by offering a unique product experience. At the same time, the roadmap would outline the feature development, testing phases, and launch timeline necessary to enter that market.
Think of a well-structured product roadmap as a vehicle's GPS. It provides clear directions on your journey towards building a successful product.
Without a clear journey and defined milestones, you risk driving in circles or even crashing.
From interdepartmental team coordination to C-suite approval and finally arriving at a desirable user experience, Visme empowers you to create a dynamic product roadmap with several intuitive tools and customizations.
Whatever your roadmap demands—agility, clarity, or detailed timelines—Visme has everything you need. Use this article as a guide; choose a product roadmap template from the curated list above; or explore more new product roadmap templates in Visme’s library and customize them to fit your needs.
Take Visme’s free roadmap maker for a spin and boost your product workflow with ready-to-use product roadmap templates.
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