Roadmaps are powerful communication tools for Product Managers

Used properly, roadmaps are among the most high-impact agile planning tools a product team can have. They’re not just slides or Gantt charts, they’re alignment tools that help us communicate intent, focus collaboration, and manage uncertainty.

When done well, roadmaps as powerful communication tools can:

• Promote collaboration between all groups that contribute to a sustainable solution
• Enable teams to plan for significant, multi-term developments that support business strategy
• Empower teams to make high-integrity commitments to value-driving features within expected release windows
• Promote compliance with emerging policies or standards
• And perhaps most importantly, help everyone see the same future, from their own angle
  
  

But here’s the thing…

There’s no such thing as ‘the perfect roadmap’, there’s only the right roadmap for the right job, at the right time to communicate where we are going, whats important and what we are doing.

The Three Levels of Roadmapping

Every roadmap exists to answer a different kind of question. The art lies in matching the tool to your altitude of operation, are you flying at:

• 30,000 ft and in need of a strategic view?
• 10,000 ft and needing to co-ordinate various teams and departments within the context of the industry you’re operating in?
• on the runway and implementing high impact features or tests that need to be communicated, planned and released?

Let’s look at each level here and the useful roadmap types for each level.

1. Strategic Roadmaps – Seeing the Whole Mountain Range

The purpose of a strategic roadmap is to visualise how your organisation will sustain growth and relevance over time, balancing today’s priorities with tomorrow’s opportunities.

The audience for this 30,000 ft view tends to be executives, senior leaders, strategy & portfolio teams.

A clear strategic view here can really help when you need to align leadership around direction and answer questions such as:

• Where should we invest?
• What bets should we invest in? 
• Where can this product go?
• How can we balance short-term delivery with long-term growth?

Example strategic roadmapping tools:

• McKinsey’s Three Horizons – framing near, mid, and long-term strategic growth bets or a path to maturity.
• Sun Ray Diagram – Similar to three horizons but great if showing parallel growth paths and useful for longer term product transformations.
• Now, Next and Later – Shows what outcomes you will tackle for which strategic goals over time horizons. A simple column view supported by many roadmapping tools.

Strategic roadmap tips:

• Growth roadmaps (like horizons or maturity curves) are not time-bound.
• Leave space the further out you go, only refine for 3–6 months ahead; keep ideas loose beyond that as environments and goals change and you should anticipate needing to respond to that change.
• These roadmaps tell the story of evolution, they are not a delivery plan.
  
  

💡 Strategic roadmaps help people see where we’re going, when the path isn’t yet fully paved.

2. Outcome or Coordination Roadmaps – Aligning the Effort

The purpose of a coordination roadmap is to communicate the strategic direction of the current horizon or ‘Now’ period, supporting coordination of the what, why, who, and when, all anchored to clear and measurable outcomes based on your strategic goals.

The audience for this 10,000ft view tends to be executives, stakeholders, operational teams, product teams, delivery managers and sometimes customers. Anyone who is impacted by or contributes to the success of achieving one or more of the intended outcomes.

A clear view of how teams interact or co-ordinate to achieve specific outcomes when you’re working across multiple streams or products can be critical in keeping people engaged and enabling the right conversations at the right time to keep moving and remove blockers. 

Having a shared view of product goals, operational dependencies, alongside highlighting marketing or industry events and rhythms that you may need to respond to can be a super powerful communication tool.

Example coordination roadmap tools:

• Feature-based or Theme-based – with swim lanes grouped by strategic goals or outcomes.
• OKR-aligned –  with prioritised initiatives or tests mapped to measurable objectives.
  
  

Coordination Roadmap Tips:

• Roadmap-worthy items should be ‘press release’ significant, something you’d celebrate internally and share the key results or learnings.
• Always show what you’re saying “Yes” to; if it’s not being done, it doesn’t belong on the roadmap.
• Incorporate market or industry events, product roadmaps are contextual and exist in the context of a moving organisation, products do not exist in a vacuum.
  
  

💡 Coordination roadmaps keep everyone moving in the same direction, at the same rhythm and aware of wider changes and impacts.

3. Implementation Roadmaps – Delivering the value

The purpose of an implementation roadmap is to translate product strategy into actionable, measurable, time-bound delivery plans.

The audience for the implementation roadmap tends to be Delivery managers, project managers, immediate stakeholders, development and QA teams, anyone who is interested in what is being worked on now and what is coming into production and impacting performance.

These roadmap views are super helpful when you’re executing with a dedicated scrum team, breaking down outcomes into epics, stories, and sprint-level milestones. They are a useful tool when sharing sprint progress, what’s been done and what’s next within the specific time horizon (usually a quarter, where you have a refined view with good confidence).

Example implementation roadmaps:

• A Timeline – of feature deliveries or outcomes within the current quarter (epic/story level, showing measurable outcome).
• Kanban-style roadmap – showing ongoing work with a measurable outcome.
  
  

Implementation Roadmap Tips:

• Time-bound roadmaps support mobilisation of the broader co-ordination roadmap
• Maintain them as living artefacts, yesterday’s roadmap is a historical snapshot, not a guide.
• Use different views for different audiences, a simplified public version and a detailed working one such as the refined team backlog.
  
  

💡 Delivery roadmaps turn intent into momentum.

Quick  Reference Table

The 5 Golden Rules of Useful Roadmapping

1. Keep it alive – Old roadmaps are inaccurate history lessons, not guides.
2. Focus on outcomes, not outputs – Align around impact, not just tasks.
3. Make it audience-appropriate – Tailor detail to the people reading it.
4. Leave space for learning- The further out you plan, the lighter your commitments should be.
5. Align often – High-impact teams have well-aligned, regularly reprioritised roadmaps.
   
   

Choosing the right roadmap isn’t about following a template, it’s about knowing your context, your altitude, and your audience.

• A strategic roadmap inspires.
• A coordination roadmap aligns.
• An implementation roadmap mobilises.

Together, they form a system of clarity that keeps organisations learning, building, and growing with integrity and intent.

Sources & References

• McKinsey & Company – 3 Horizons
• Marty Cagan – The concept that product roadmaps are “alignment engines” rather than feature lists, focusing on outcomes over outputs.
• Teresa Torres – The emphasis on co-ordination across teams and learning through regular reprioritisation
• Melissa Perri – The warning that roadmaps shouldn’t become feature factories and the concept that “Roadmaps should focus on what you’re saying yes to” and should be tied to value and outcomes rather than feature delivery.
• Roman Pichler  – The concept that strategic roadmaps tell the story of evolution; they are not a delivery plan.
• April Dunford – emphasis on positioning and context as part of the wider organisational environment.