How to create a Kanban roadmap

A Kanban roadmap can be a great way to track your features across your discovery and delivery lifecycle. This roadmap organizes features by status.

• How to create a Kanban roadmap
• When should I use a Kanban roadmap?
• Learn more about using Kanban roadmaps

How to create a Kanban roadmap

Create your roadmap

1. Click the + button next to your Teamspace or folder name.
2. From the drop-down menu, select Roadmap.
   
3. Select Kanban roadmap from the left menu.
4. Click Choose roadmap.
   
   
5. Click Add status.
6. Select a status from the menu to create your first column.

Add or rearrange status columns

On the column roadmap, you can either select the columns by clicking the Add columns button on the roadmap header, or by clicking in the middle of the canvas.

For the release column roadmap, you can first choose the release group you want to work with, and then you can quickly add a column by toggling on the releases.

1. Click [+] to add a new status column.
2. Click  to add a status column to the left or the right.
3. Click and hold a status to drag and drop the column.

Add features to a Kanban roadmap

There are three ways to add a feature to a Kanban roadmap:

1. Click [+] in a status column to search for an existing feature. If the feature has another status, the feature status will change to match the columns.
2. Click [+] in a status column to create a new feature. The feature will automatically be assigned the status of the column.
3. From the features board, click the status of a feature to select one of the statuses you're viewing on your roadmap.

Keep in mind that you can also perform step 3 by dragging and dropping a feature to another status when viewing the Features board by status:

How to organize your Kanban roadmap

1. Click  Configure to open up the configurations menu.
2. Select Swimlanes to organize your roadmap horizontally.
3. Toggle Effort to display story points on each feature card.
4. Click on the People section and select which avatar you want to visualize on each feature card - Owner, Teams, or Custom Member field.
5. Toggle Comments to display the comment icon on the feature cards. Clicking on this comment icon will navigate any user to the feature comment section.
6. Toggle Submit idea to display the Submit Idea button on the roadmap header. Clicking on this Submit idea will enable the user to create a new note either on behalf of the user/company or space member.
7. Enterprise plans: Toggle Objectives to display any objectives associated with that feature.
8. Toggle Show hidden cards to display feature and subfeature cards that have been manually hidden from contributors.
9. Toggle Show subfeatures to display associated subfeature cards.

You can choose which entities you will work with in the roadmap by clicking Item type in the roadmap header and selecting the entity from the drop-down menu. You can turn on/off secondary or tertiary items on all roadmaps. You will then see which items you are displaying in the header. 

Organize by hierarchy

1. Click on Group in the top left corner to access additional organization options.
2. Select Hierarchy to group feature ideas by their relevant components or sub-components.
3. Hover over a component and click the down-facing caret, which appears to hide or expand its associated features.

Organize by objectives (available on Enterprise plans)

1. Click on Group in the top left corner to access additional organization options.
2. Select Objectives to group feature ideas by their relevant objective.
3. Toggle on Priority in the  Configure menu to display this feature's importance towards the overarching objective.
4. Toggle Team in the  Configure menu to display the team associated with the overarching objective.
5. Click the down-facing caret on an objective to hide or expand its associated features.
6. Drag and drop your objectives to adjust the order in which they're displayed.

How to share and export your Kanban roadmap

1. After making any configuration changes, click Save. You will see confirmation once your roadmap changes have been saved, and the Save button will now read Share.
2. Click the   next to the share button.
3. Click Print to print your roadmap.
4. Click Export as PNG to generate a PNG of your roadmap.

When should I use a Kanban roadmap?

Kanban roadmaps are good for:

• You're a team using working in a dual track agile approach.
• You're using a continuous release process without fixed releases or versions.
• Communicating at a high level with product leadership: are we blocked? are we moving ideas out of our backlog and into delivery?
• Communicating with teams already using a Kanban board to organize their work.
• Product teams with lots of granular statuses. Colorful icons do the trick when there are only a few possible statuses, but if you're trying to track >5 statuses, a Kanban view is easier to follow.

Kanban roadmaps might not be good for:

• Measuring progress against strict deadlines with specific milestones. Consider a Features Timeline roadmap instead.
• A huge features backlog that needs cleaning up. Try a simpler Now-next-later roadmap to render order out of chaos.
• Customer-facing teams, who will want more specific release timelines. Try a Releases timeline plan.

Learn more about using Kanban roadmaps

• Guide: Plan releases to decide what to deliver when
• Guide: Choose the right roadmap for your audience