Top six roadmap tools every product manager needs

Product roadmaps outline how products will transform and grow over time. They can include anticipated product updates, such as new functionalities or redesigns, future goals, and action plans for getting a product through development to launch, and future iterations.

With this guide to the top roadmap tools for product managers, you can identify what software features work best for your unique processes, how choosing the right software can make all the difference to reaching your objectives, and start developing a process for making the best choice among the top-performing options.

Multiple stakeholders care about product roadmaps, but each is interested in the roadmap for different reasons.

Developers want to know what the priority projects are, and what engineering tasks are on the horizon.

Customer support teams need to know when releases will roll out so they can plan their resources.

Marketers are interested in roadmap details that help them craft messages for target audiences.

Executives care about definite dates and priority features so they can focus on organization-wide strategies.

Product managers and project managers need to develop detailed roadmaps and projects that cater to all these needs. They need roadmap software that:

• Helps them organize projects

• Makes it easy to collaborate

• Creates detailed records of feature backlogs, bugs, and project progress

Product roadmaps are visual displays that share information about goals, specific projects, and the trajectory a product is moving in. Product roadmap software is the tool that helps product managers create those roadmaps.

Some of the key aspects of product roadmap software are:

• The roadmap itself: Software and planning platforms offer dozens of templates and organizational tools for helping users create roadmaps that communicate crucial information.

• Editing and refinement options: Roadmaps are never static, but they can't be chaotic. Robust roadmap platforms include tools for refining roadmaps, controlling access and editing permissions, and granular views so users can zoom in on specific products or aspects of a roadmap to flesh it out in more detail.

• Task management: Roadmaps aren't just visual displays. They're tools where work takes place. For example, users might click on a feature update outlined in a roadmap to dive into the specific project, defined tasks, and timeline details.

Product roadmap software houses all the details about a product and its projects, so various stakeholders can revise or review details such as timelines, anticipated deliverables, and the responsibilities of different groups involved in the product.

When you're selecting roadmap tools for your team, it's important to know what benefits matter most for each user. Prioritize the features that best support those benefits and identify the software that best provides those features.

Let’s look at three key benefits of product roadmap software.

Better team collaboration

There are a lot of different players on product roadmaps, including:

• Executive-level stakeholders

• Engineering teams

• Customer support reps

• Product managers

These teams don't always have direct contact with each other, and they each care about different facets of the product.

The right product roadmap software allows everyone to interact in a centralized virtual location. Users should be able to:

• Directly message each other

• Check on the real-time status of tasks and updates they're waiting for

• Weigh in on ideation or strategic sessions that guide the roadmap's path

Improved prioritization and focus

Ultimately, product roadmaps are an organizational tool. They allow different users to see:

• How a product will change over time

• The feature backlog and how each item is prioritized

• The momentum of different projects and updates

Depending on the user, they can either communicate that information to their audiences (as in the case of marketers) or start preparing for upcoming tasks and workloads (as in the case of engineering team leads).

More streamlined workflows

Product roadmap software doesn't simply display the roadmap. It also includes the tasks, responsibilities, and timelines of smaller projects along the way. This can help teams prioritize different tasks, stay focused, and ensure they're meeting deadlines.

Before you shop around to find the right roadmapping tool for your team or organization, rank these key features to determine which ones matter most to you.

Each feature plays a critical role in project success, so consider all these before making a purchase:

• User-friendly interface: An intuitive user interface helps unfamiliar users to understand and start using the software. We recommend investing in platforms that are user-friendly because they're well-designed rather than because they're simple.

• Collaboration: Look for tools that include on-platform collaboration options, such as instant messaging, task assignment, and information-sharing tools, so no one has to go off-platform to communicate.

• Integrations: Product roadmaps involve multiple stakeholders with different tasks and specialties. Ideally, your roadmap tool should integrate cleanly with the tools everyone needs to use.

• Templates: Templates make it easy to get started. Opt for platforms that include dozens of customizable templates for tracking tickets, organizing the overall roadmap, managing tasks, and more.

While there are many different product roadmap tools on the market, they all fit into two broad categories: free and premium (paid).

Free software is a good option for experimentation and for exploring what types of features and formats you like best. However, a free platform is unlikely to give you access to a robust set of tools.

Paid software is generally much more robust, with sturdier feature sets, fewer limitations, and more automations and integrations. Investing in a paid product roadmap tool is generally the best practice for businesses. However, some vendors provide free trials or freemium options so your teams can explore the software before committing.

Follow these steps to choose the right product roadmap software:

1. Identify the features and capabilities you need in your software, such as collaboration tools, integrations, and security options.

2. Create a list of roadmap software options that fulfill your must-have requirements.

3. Rank them by factors such as budget, ease of use, flexible plans without limitations around user numbers, or long-term advantage.

4. Get approval on a final choice from finance and IT.

When possible, speak to vendors about a trial and flexible plan options so you can see if the software aligns with your needs.

The best product roadmap tool for one organization may not be the best fit for another. Even internally, different teams may prefer specific software.

As you start your search, consider these top roadmap tools for different departments or stakeholders.

For product managers

Product managers need a roadmap platform that makes organization and management as easy as possible. Depending on your style, that might mean having a robust, feature-rich tool that's complex and very detailed, or it may mean a streamlined tool that keeps all users on narrow, focused paths.

Jira 

Jira is widely known as one of the most robust project management platforms available. It has full-feature product roadmap tools for effective product development planning. Organizations in every industry can use it to:

• Plan marketing campaigns

• Build IT workflows

• Handle operational projects

• Develop product releases

Jira's universality makes it a particularly good fit for product managers because the teams they coordinate with are likely to be already familiar with the software (which can be intimidating to first-time users).

Some of the key features that make Jira one of the best roadmap tools for product managers are:

• Easy task setting: Clear task generation and management tools make it easy to assign tasks to specific project members and monitor their progress. Product managers can instantly review the status of different elements, view individual tasks through a variety of roadmap views like timeline or big-picture, and follow up on late to-dos. 

• Project planning: Jira is, fundamentally, a project management tool. Product managers can create detailed project plans with the platform's templates, recommended processes, and a vast array of resources. Users can set clear objectives, develop timelines, and coordinate routine check-ins to keep the project on track.

• Simple collaboration: Team members can message others directly in the platform so work gets done inside the main project platform rather than be scattered across emails and instant messenger tools. Also, because of the thousands of integrations Jira can accommodate, all the work records and updates can be centralized, and everyone's progress can be discussed, reviewed, and shared in one platform.

Gocious

Gocious is a more specific platform than Jira for product roadmaps, providing users with centralized planning options. Because it zeroes in on product management, it can be an easier tool to adopt and master. Product managers can create a detailed product plan or go-to-market product strategy (either manually or by modifying the preexisting roadmap templates).

Key benefits of Gocious include:

• Lifecycle management tools

• Forecasting tools

• Centralized planning functions so project team members in different departments can easily collaborate under the direction of the product manager

ProdPad

ProdPad is a product management tool that focuses on strategy. Users can link specific goals to OKRs (objectives and key results) and broader department goals. There are different views for various aspects of product management, such as:

• Ideating potential improvements

• Ranking projects by priority level

• Communicating the strategy to stakeholders

• Streamlining decision-making

ProdPad's advantage over bigger tools like Jira is that the developers only add features that directly align with good product management. It's a simplified tool without the distractions present in larger, multi-purpose project management platforms.

It also preserves version history well, and data is never overwritten; it just creates new records for every interactive change or roadmap revision.

Craft.io

Craft.io is a handy resource for product management in general, with tools for:

• Tracking product information over time

• Gathering feature requests

• Tracking projects

Because all the data for a product can live in this tool, it's easy to start, manage, and complete new projects without having to get used to new software or do a lot of administrative prep work before getting to the "meat" of a new project.

For engineering teams

Engineering teams have different needs than product managers when it comes to roadmaps. 

While both user types need constant, detailed access to project and product details, engineers and dev professionals need options like:

• Clear records of dependencies and past changes so they can steer clear of architectural drift and avoid making changes that negatively impact other features or product functions

• Collaboration tools that cross department lines and make it easy to communicate complex ideas, technical details, or large pieces of information

• Backlog records so engineers can review the evolution of requests and see how features fit together across customer use cases and past customer feedback tickets

Jira

Jira is on this list again because it functions so well across many different aspects of product roadmapping.

Engineers can methodically plan, document, and track work done on granular aspects of a project. Engineering and product teams can track individual tasks, stay on top of work, and determine priorities.

Jira is also designed to accommodate Agile strategies, Kanban- or Gantt-style board views, and long-term issue tracking to provide deeper insights for product development.

monday dev

monday dev, a product development platform within the monday.com ecosystem, includes the tools engineering teams need for building and upgrading software or apps.

Technical users can easily:

• Plan sprints

• Contextualize tasks and progress within a larger roadmap

• Create well-organized backlogs

Non-technical users in adjacent product teams who are passingly familiar with monday.com's general task-management tools will also be able to interact with the platform, reducing the risks of silos or frustration.

For marketing teams

Marketing teams play a key role in product roadmaps. While developers and product managers zero in on small changes and priority features, marketers need to:

• Understand those changes

• Communicate them to external stakeholders

• Translate them into non-technical, exciting benefits as the basis for new marketing campaigns

Two of the top roadmap tools for marketing teams are Jira and Miro.

Jira

Jira appears on this list of roadmap tools three separate times—and for good reason. It offers robust features for every aspect of projects and product updates.

While other members of the team are focusing on their tasks, marketers can use Jira-based communications and details to:

• Forecast campaigns based on project progress

• Contextualize new features based on customer interactions with the project

• Directly address customer concerns and wants in the same language they use

• Collaborate with other teams to get marketing details right

• Create internal communications that accurately share updates for general company-wide announcements

• Create assets for marketing and sales teams

Software and tech organizations benefit when teams can use the same software to store information and communicate with each other. Because Jira helps teams do precisely that, it's the top tool across many different roles.

Miro

Miro is, broadly speaking, a collaboration tool to facilitate online work between remote teams. Users can create mind maps, timelines, and tasks using the many templates on the platform. These templates can be used to track internal movement and make customer-facing marketing assets more cohesive.

Miro also integrates with Jira, so marketers who need to work in marketing-specific ecosystems aren't isolated from the other workflows.

Product roadmapping can quickly become complex, especially if your organization doesn't have a cohesive set of tools that allow all the different stakeholders to communicate, track progress, and understand their work within the wider context of the product.

Your organization can keep everyone together on the same platform by choosing a robust system like Jira so everyone is in the same ecosystem, or you can choose specific platforms for each team that integrate and talk to each other, sharing information but allowing each team streamlined access to the tools they specifically need.