The Agile roadmap, also known as an Agile product roadmap, is a tool that enables teams to assess the viability of their product strategy. It's designed to accommodate change, which is a constant in the Agile approach. When market competition shifts, or customers start demanding new features, Agile roadmaps are easy to adjust.
The Agile roadmap includes a timeline, but it's secondary to the product backlog. This means that deliverables can easily be rescheduled based on their importance at any given time. As the roadmap develops, it tells a complete story of how the product will evolve over time. It serves as an efficient tool to communicate the product vision and the desired outcomes to all stakeholders.
How is an Agile roadmap different?
Planning out a project timeline can feel like a throwback to traditional Waterfall approaches. However, an Agile roadmap doesn't necessarily look different from other roadmaps. What matters is the approach and mindset behind it. Rather than a strict plan of action, an Agile roadmap is a tool for continually reevaluating and adjusting priorities in alignment with the overall project strategy. It's important to remember that Agile doesn't mean abandoning all planning and structure.
How to use an Agile roadmap
Agile roadmaps are useful tools for product owners, managers, and Agile Scrum Masters to align with their teams, track progress, prioritize their product backlog, and keep stakeholders informed of any changes. Combining an Agile roadmap with a product backlog can provide a big picture of the strategy alongside immediate delivery needs.
The benefit of Agile is its flexibility, allowing teams to adapt their tactics to keep themselves aligned with strategic goals. Therefore, constantly updating the Agile roadmap is essential. The roadmap should reflect any changes in customer needs, team capacity, or market forces that require a different prioritization of stories. It covers projects at a higher level, while the product backlog covers individual tasks.
By continuously updating the collaborative Agile roadmap, everyone involved, including other functions, managers and executives, and outside stakeholders, can see how the team is approaching strategic goals in a new way.
Create your own Agile roadmap
To create and share your Agile roadmap, FigJam's whiteboard tool provides an excellent platform. Begin by selecting the Agile Roadmap Template and follow these steps:
- Clarify your product vision by revisiting your research plan and defining a clear and inspiring future state for your product that solves real problems for your customers.
- Validate your product strategy, which typically comprises three parts: defining your market and the customer needs you're addressing, outlining key product features and differentiators, and creating business goals that confirm how the product will help your company.
- Build your roadmap by translating your product vision and strategy into epics, subdividing them into stories, and placing them along your timeline. By default, the milestones are quarterly, and initiatives are color-coded according to the function that owns them. You can edit the text to reflect your timelines and cross-functional teams.
- Share your roadmap with other teams and stakeholders. Give your entire product team access to the document and invite team members who don't already have access from Slack or email. Use FigJam's live chat or video chat functions to hold a real-time discussion on dependencies, team capacities, whether any timelines need reorganizing, and priority stories for each initiative.
- Instead of focusing on traditional deadlines, make sure that your roadmap includes measurable goals for both short-term tactics and longer-term strategic goals.
It's important to regularly review your roadmap every quarter and make necessary adjustments. Keep in mind that features will change as you learn more about your product and customers, and make sure to communicate these changes with your team and external stakeholders. If you need to collaborate with other tools in your tech stack, such as Jira, you can easily integrate them into your Agile Roadmap Template in FigJam. This will allow you to visually organize Jira issues and keep everything up-to-date across platforms.
