As a mini-roadmap for product managers, timelines are a valuable tool that can provide clear visual guidance on the necessary steps to successfully deliver your project or product. When labelled clearly, they can help you communicate updates and changes related to new feature developments, bug fixes, and continuous improvement. Timelines also play a crucial role in project planning by helping to clarify dependencies, workflows, resource allocation, and deadlines.
When to use a timeline
Timelines offer a variety of benefits, including:
- Providing teams with a clear visual summary of events or priorities
- Offering a time-sensitive agenda or itinerary
- Highlighting important milestones or phrases
- Focusing on critical dates or details that your team may overlook
For busy product managers, timelines can be especially valuable in prioritizing processes and team activities, creating and following through on roadmaps, driving product launches, and promoting product awareness across teams. Project managers can incorporate project timelines into presentations, project plans, and proposals to ensure that all stakeholders are informed about project details. Additionally, timelines are in other documents where project information should be shared with clients or stakeholders.
Create your own timeline
Step 1: Start by determining the story you want your timeline to convey.
Will it be a mini-roadmap, workflow, project plan, or campaign timeline? Once you've identified its purpose, you can begin filling it with meaningful data.
Step 2: Customize your timeline by adding, removing, or reorganizing key points.
Choose whether to display weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly progress and edit text boxes to reflect essential phases or milestones.
Step 3: Collect feedback from your team to refine dates and action items on the timeline.
You may need input from an expert in another department or a specific team member who has access to critical information. Use "@" followed by their name to notify them of comments they need to address. The entire team can be notified at once using "@team". Keep track of conversations by clicking on the bell icon and resolve comments after reaching a consensus with your team.
Step 4: Personalize your timeline to suit your needs by adding colours, fonts, icons, and media embeds.
The default timeline can be extended to include as much context and new information as required. Edit the timeline text to match your project's specific details. Colour-coding the timeline allows for quick status recognition of actions completed or behind schedule, while emojis can provide additional context to milestones. You can also link relevant media such as videos or images and related boards like a Milestone Chart to enhance the overall understanding of your project's progress.
