Productboard is a flexible platform that can help you visualize your work in many ways, but sometimes it's hard to know where to start when there are so many possibilities. This guide will walk you through the steps needed to build three of the most popular roadmaps used in product management today.
As you review these instructions, remember the most important rule: tailor your roadmap to your audience. You can create as many roadmaps in Productboard as you need, so don't be afraid to customize each one for its own audience as needed.
If you have no idea where to even begin with roadmaps, let alone which ones you should be building, check out Quick start guide: New roadmaps.
If you prefer video to text, check out this course on our Academy, where we walk you through the steps below and with some extra commentary.
In this article:
- High-level roadmap for leadership
- Kanban board for delivery teams
- Initiative overview roadmap for GTM teams
- See also
High-level roadmap for leadership
Leadership roadmaps give a 1000-foot view of the product team's work. These high-level roadmaps provide quick summaries of your product direction, with the ability to dive in deeper if needed.
Click the toggle below to view step-by-step instructions.
Before you begin, make sure the items you wish to visualize have timeframes assigned to them.
To make a high-level objective roadmap:
- Create a new timeline board, preferably within a relevant teamspace. Where you put the board also impacts how other members of your workspace can access it.
- On the Board controls sidebar, under Items, click Add items and select Objective as your first item type.
- Click Add items again and select Initiative if you have the option to. If you don't, choose Feature instead.
- Leave Hide empty items unchecked for now. You can always turn it on later if you want.
- Under Filters, click Add filter. Select Objectives where Objective Status is none of Completed. This will hide any completed objectives from the timeline and keep you focused on the future.
- Repeat Step 5, but select Initiatives or Features instead. If you're using features and have customized your feature statuses, your options will depend on your customized statuses.
- Your Board controls should look something like the image below. Click Apply when you're ready.
- Click Card customization.
- Under Timeframe visualization, set Linked items in time to On. This makes the board's subordinate items display their own timeframes instead of conforming to their parents'.
- Under Attributes, click Objectives, then toggle on Key results, Owner, and Work progress.
- Under Attributes, click Initiatives or Features, then toggle on Owner and Health.
- Click Save. This ensures others can see the board as you've configured it.
Kanban board for delivery teams
Use a kanban board to track features through the delivery process. Most product teams bring up this roadmap during team meetings and apply different filters over the course of the meeting to highlight the feature cohort being discussed by filtering for specific owners, products, or other criteria.
Click the toggle below to view step-by-step instructions.
To make a kanban board:
- Create a new columns board, preferably within a relevant teamspace. Where you put the board also impacts how other members of your workspace can access it.
- On the Board controls sidebar, under Items, click Add items and select Feature as your first item type.
- Click Add items again and select Subfeature.
- Leave Hide empty items unchecked for now. You can always turn it on later if you want.
- Under Filters, click Add filter. Select Features where Feature status is any of [your desired statuses]. Your status options and which ones you choose will depend on your existing workflow and whether you've customized your feature statuses.
- (Optional) If this board is meant to deal with a subset of your workspace's products, add another filter. Select Product hierarchy where Product hierarchy is any of [your chosen products].
- (Optional) If this board is for one or more specific teams, add another filter. Select Features where Features > Teams is any of [your chosen team(s)].
- Under Columns, select Status. Those statuses which you excluded in Step 5 will be hidden automatically.
- (Optional) If you want to swimlane your kanban board by team, under Groups, click Add grouping and select Teams.
- Your Board controls should look something like the image below. Click Apply when you're ready.
- Click Card customization.
- Under Attributes, click Features, then toggle on Owner or Teams, Health, and Effort.
- Click Save. This ensures others can see the board as you've configured it.
Initiative overview roadmap for GTM teams
Your customer-facing colleagues will thank you for giving them a roadmap that conveys a sense of when to expect major updates coming in the next 3, 6, or 12 months.
Click the toggle below to view step-by-step instructions.
Before you begin, make sure the items you wish to visualize have timeframes assigned to them.
To make an initiative overview roadmap:
- Create a timeline board, preferably within a relevant teamspace. Where you put the board also impacts how other members of your workspace can access it.
- On the Board controls sidebar, under Items, click Add items and select Initiative as your first item type.
- Click Add items again and select Feature.
- Check the Hide empty items box so that empty initiatives will remain hidden.
- (Optional) If this board is meant to deal with a subset of your workspace's products, under Filters, click Add filter. Select Product hierarchy where Product hierarchy is any of [your chosen products].
- Under Groups, click Add grouping and select Teams. This will help your audience build an understanding of who's doing what on the EPD side.
- Your Board controls should look something like the image below. Click Apply when you're ready.
- Click Card customization.
- Under Timeframe visualization, set Linked items in time to On. This makes the board's subordinate items display their own timeframes instead of conforming to their parents'.
- Under Card attributes, click Initiatives, then toggle on Objectives. This gives the audience an idea of which strategic business goals each initiative is driving toward.
- Click Save. This ensures others can see the board as you've configured it.