This guide will help you set up clear and tailored roadmaps. Each section below outlines key concepts and contains links to other articles in case you need more details. The guide assumes you know what Productboard is and have an understanding of how navigation, board creation, and data structures work.
In this article:
- Introduction: Columns and timelines
- Step 1: Discover your audience's needs
- Step 2: Choose the appropriate roadmap type
- Step 3: Filter and configure the roadmap
- Step 4: Share the roadmap
- See also
Introduction: Columns and timelines
In Productboard, two board types (timelines and columns) are specialized for communicating plans to internal audiences. We'll refer to both board types together as roadmaps throughout this article unless otherwise noted.
You can create roadmaps centered around any of the main Productboard item types:
- Objectives: Strategic business goals and associate key results.
- Initiatives: High-level deliverables or projects.
- Products, components, or features: Specific product areas or deliverables.
- Releases: Milestones, launch phases, or abstract time measurements (like Now-Next-Later).
The data you see on roadmaps are the same data you see on other boards, so changing data in one place will change it in the other. It's usually better to edit and organize your data on grid boards, then use roadmaps for visualization and alignment.
Note: Roadmaps aren't designed for external communication, but portals are. See Use the Portal to share your plans and collect feedback at scale for details.
Board controls
The Board controls sidebar lets you change the layout of the board. Click Board controls in the header to open it. It'll open automatically when you create a new board.
Here's an example of what Board controls can look like:
- Layout: You can always change the board's type without erasing your settings.
- Items: Choose your main entity type and any secondary entities to be displayed.
- Filters: Restrict item visibility based on data values.
- Columns: Choose which data type to use for column organization.
- Groups: Add swimlanes to the board.
- Footer: Apply the changes you've selected above or reset them to before you began.
Note: The board controls menu may change depending on the board's type and your Productboard plan level. For example, timelines don't have a Columns section—they have Granularity instead.
Step 1: Discover your audience's needs
A roadmap built for your executives won't be very useful for your engineering team, and vice versa. If you try to build a roadmap to satisfy everyone, it won't satisfy anyone. There are two questions you should ask yourself before building a roadmap:
- Who is this roadmap built for? It should be for a specific group of people. Product Team A, Sales, GTM, Executives—whatever, as long as the group's expectations are roughly uniform.
- What will they want to learn from it? Learn what they want by asking them. It's always best to check with the audience before and after you give them a roadmap to make sure it's actually useful.
- How much detail do they need? For example, executive roadmaps can probably stay high-level, while a release plan for engineers will need to be more granular. But ask, don't assume.
Step 2: Choose the appropriate roadmap type
When you're deciding which type of board to use for your roadmap, consider the following:
- Columns boards are better for comparing entities against each other and for visualizing them in abstract blocks of time. Read more about configuring columns boards here.
- Timeline boards are better for contextualizing your entities within specific dates or date ranges. Read more about configuring timelines here.
Step 3: Filter and configure the roadmap
Filters can be added from Board controls, and can help you limit the amount of information on screen to aid navigation.
See Simple filters on New boards for details.
Attributes allow you to display key information directly on roadmap cards, enhancing visibility and streamlining your workflow. This feature is accessible from the Card customization menu in the top-right corner of timelines and columns boards.
See Customize your roadmaps with card attributes for details.
Step 4: Share the roadmap
Once you're satisfied with your roadmap, make sure it's in a place where the intended audience can access it.
Roadmaps inherit access controls from their parent teamspace, so don't put your executive roadmap in your GTM teamspace, and certainly don't keep it hidden away in your Private section.
See Teamspace types and member access levels for details.