It’s the beginning of a new year and it’s time to get back to the drawing board to create a strategic roadmap. Why a Roadmap? A visual, like a simple roadmap, is a crucial part of your organization’s strategic planning. A strategic roadmap can assist leaders in providing a visualization of the organization’s long-term vision, mission, goals and initiatives for key stakeholders. Your roadmap should be a visual that assists your team in making better decisions. So, how do you draw a no-fail high-level roadmap? This article will cover the top 8 tips to help you create the perfect roadmap.
It’s the beginning of a new year!
For leaders and consultants, that implies the start of new projects and products. It is also the time to assess existing projects in your company.
It’s time to get back to the drawing board to create a roadmap.
Why a Roadmap?
Strategic planning is an essential part of project management or product development. And a visual, like a simple roadmap, is a crucial part of your organization’s strategic planning.
A road map is an excellent way to show information about your project or product at a glance. A high-level roadmap will help you collect and organize your project’s strategy, goals, and tasks. A strategic roadmap can assist leaders in providing a visualization of the organization’s long-term vision, mission, goals and initiatives for key stakeholders.
Roadmaps come in several formats. Your roadmap can be a simple line chart or a complicated flow chart. Regardless of the format, your roadmap should be a visual that assists your team in making better decisions. It should simplify and streamline communication about your projects, products, programs, or organization’s long-term initiatives.
So, how do you draw a no-fail high-level roadmap?
This article will cover the top 8 tips to help you create the perfect roadmap. Let’s get started.
- Begin with the end in mind
What is the big vision at the end of the road? What are the goals that align with that vision? What is the time frame for the project?
The answers to these questions should be the first thing on your roadmap. Define your vision, goals and time frame clearly on your roadmap. Your goals should align with your vision clearly.
With clearly defined goals and time frames, you can decide the tasks (next steps) you need to complete your project. Plus you will have a way to measure progress.
- Gather all relevant information
Make sure you have all the relevant information about the project at hand. That way, you can easily define your project strategy. Talk to all the key stakeholders involved and get their input.
What will support the vision and what will challenge the vision?
If you are creating a roadmap for a product, engage with your product user community. Get the consumer’s input about the product.
- Add specific tasks
Once you have established your end-results, create specific tasks for each process of your project. Make sure you add a time frame to each task as well.
Each task should be clearly defined and assigned a time duration. It makes your roadmap action-oriented.
- Don’t include everything on your roadmap
Avoid too many details on your roadmap!
Your roadmap is supposed to be a graphical representation of your project. It does not replace other project management tools, it supplements them.
Keep it high-level!
- Design your roadmap image with your audience in mind
Your stakeholders will be reviewing, approving, responsible, or accountable throughout your project.
Use formats, diagrams and terms they will easily understand. If you are presenting to several groups, point out key areas in the roadmap that are key to each group. Our facilitators love using Mural.co to create roadmaps during strategic planning retreats. Mural is a great collaborative whiteboard tool.
Keep in mind that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to create different roadmaps for each group.
- Use a simple design, large titles and subtitles
Think of your roadmap as a presentation of your project.
Your audience should be able to read your roadmap even at a distance. Use a bold font to call attention to different areas and a layout that people can easily read.
- Use various colors
You can use different colors to represent each process on your map. However, make sure you use contrasting colors so it is easier to read.
You can use a color code to help people quickly make connections between the different processes.
- Use the right roadmap tools
Lastly, make sure you are using the right roadmapping tool. Pair that with the solid meeting facilitation tools and you’ll be on your way to having a productive strategy meeting.
Your roadmap tool should:
- Make it easy to create visual concepts
- Update visuals
- Be user-friendly
- Make it easy to export
- Easily integrate with cloud storage and other project management tools
Those are our tips to help you create strategic roadmap to success. Feel free to download this template to get some inspiration for creating a roadmap for your organization, program, or project this year.
If you need professional help to create the right roadmap for your project or to facilitate your strategic planning session, you can book a consultation here.
Lisa
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