Roadmap tools help product and project managers plan and execute specific tasks. Consistently effective product and project management are essential to align the outputs of those efforts with your business’s strategic planning goals. Consistently successful product and project management efforts can also maximize their contributions to the success of your business.
You and your teams must use project planning and goal tracking to create clear, comprehensive project and product roadmaps. The right roadmap tool for your company should include features that simplify and speed up project and product management efforts. Effective project roadmap tools could include features such as an easy-to-use project roadmap template.
This article highlights some of the best roadmap tools, including Jira. Jira offers the ideal combination of features and flexibility to meet your company’s specific needs and goals.
Key features of top roadmapping tools
The most effective roadmap tools include multiple features to simplify product or project management efforts. Popular features include collaboration tools, integrations with other project management software, task management, timeline visualization, and reporting capabilities.
Jira includes the features mentioned above and more, delivered on a single platform with an intuitive, easy-to-navigate user interface.
Kanban Boards: A board is a project management tool that helps teams easily and collaboratively plan, visualize, and manage their work. The board displays each work item as a visual card that you can move between columns as each project or product task progresses through your workflow.
Timelines: Create interactive timelines with Jira to synchronize your teams and stakeholders by adding epics and mapping work items, dependencies, and releases.
Dashboards: These provide a single view of all projects, assignments, and achievements, allowing you to easily and consistently monitor work progress.
Reports: Jira includes dozens of preconfigured reports to help you identify trends and predict future performance. Reports offer critical insights into your teams’ work to ensure they are always up to date and to help set them up for success.
Templates: Choose from dozens of preconfigured templates. These include terms and features that span various categories, departments, and teams so you can start new projects quickly.
8 best product roadmap tools
When selecting the best roadmap tool for your business, you must consider multiple important factors. These include ease of deployment, ease of use, and the quality of vendor support. You must also consider your available budget, people, and other resources,and the skills and experience of your product and project management teams with roadmap tools and roadmapping in general.
Below are eight leading product roadmap tools and what they’re best used for.
Jira: best overall roadmapping tool
Its comprehensive feature set and flexibility make Jira the best overall tool for creating, executing, and managing roadmaps. With Jira, teams can quickly and easily understand what they’re working on, how it fits into user and business needs and goals, and what’s coming next. And as things change, Jira gives your teams the flexibility they need to pivot with agility and stay on track to meet your goals.
Jira: best for project tracking and task management
Jira excels at efficient project tracking and task management. Designed with business teams and collaboration in mind, Jira makes it easy for teams to plan, collaborate, deliver, and report on work. Interactive timelines and flexible views make it easy to understand priorities, manage action items, and track progress so you can focus on what matters most to your business.
Confluence: best for knowledge sharing
Confluence offers a combination of features, making it a top choice for teams looking to share knowledge and collaborate effectively. You can also create Confluence pages directly in Jira, so your teams can stay organized and track all project information in a single repository. Confluence uses timelines to keep your teams and stakeholders in sync and track your progress toward larger goals.
Confluence whiteboards: best for brainstorming
Confluence whiteboards provide an ideal platform for brainstorming sessions and capturing ideas. Confluence’s features make it easy for you and your colleagues to capture the results of their brainstorming and ideation sessions with collaborators and stakeholders and to share them for review, comment, and knowledge dissemination.
Jira Align: best for strategic planning
Jira Align aggregates team-level data to make all work visible in real time. Managers and stakeholders can easily determine scope, roadmaps, and dependencies across teams and portfolios. These features make Jira Align a powerful strategic planning tool for larger companies.
Jira Product Discovery: best for roadmap prioritization
Jira Product Discovery lets product teams capture and prioritize ideas and align everyone with product roadmaps, all within Jira. Jira Product Discovery enables your teams to gather the data and insights needed to prioritize tasks and prioritize those that will make the most impact.
Jira Service Management: best for IT service management (ITSM) roadmapping
Jira Service Management offers specialized features tailored for ITSM roadmapping. Jira Service Management connects your development, IT, and business teams, enabling your business to deliver exceptional service through effective service management.
Loom: best for async collaboration
Loom is an asynchronous (async) video messaging tool that allows users to communicate and collaborate via easy-to-create, instantly shareable videos. The optional Loom AI add-on can automatically generate calls to action, chapters, summaries, and titles, compose messages, and eliminate filler words. Loom’s asynchronous video communication and collaboration features can increase productivity for your teams, especially those in multiple locations.
Atlas: Best for project communication
Atlas provides goal-tracking features that map and track shared goals, connect work to outcomes, and provide a consolidated view of the work and contributions of multiple teams. Atlas makes it easy to discover, understand, track, and align with shared business goals, whichever framework you use. These features make Atlas a leading choice for goal tracking.
Create effective roadmaps with Jira
Moving projects across the finish line can be challenging, especially if you're juggling multiple workstreams, stakeholders, and deadlines. To achieve your goals, your teams need the best roadmaps possible.
Fortunately, Jira’s extensive capabilities can provide a comprehensive solution for all aspects of roadmapping. Jira helps teams plan projects, define work, and track real-time progress toward important deliverables.
Roadmap tools: Frequently asked questions
How do you choose the best roadmap tool for your team?
Some factors to consider when choosing the best roadmap software for your team include team size and expertise, project complexity, available budget, and integration needs. You should evaluate features based on your business needs and goals.
What are the benefits of using roadmap tools?
Roadmap tools help teams align on goals, prioritize tasks, track progress, communicate plans effectively, and adapt to changes efficiently. Effective roadmapping can streamline project planning, improve team coordination, enhance tactical and strategic decision-making, and foster transparency and accountability.
Are roadmap tools suitable for all types of projects?
Roadmap tools can easily be adapted to various project types. When assessing the suitability of a tool for your specific situation, consider factors such as project size, industry, and team dynamics.