Aha! Roadmaps | Introduction to roadmaps

Visual roadmaps are one of the most powerful ways to communicate where your product, project, campaign or service is headed. Use them to showcase upcoming features you plan on delivering, set expectations around project timelines, or ensure management is apprised of your high-level initiatives.

This video shows how to create roadmaps for your team using Aha! product roadmap software.

Keeping these various roadmaps up-to-date and pertinent can be a labor of love. Activities get reprioritized, dates can slip and every team wants to see only the information that is relevant to them.

Fortunately, you can visualize everything in Aha! Roadmaps without having to enter the same roadmap data twice. And when your structured data changes, your roadmaps can automatically update as well — no more endless fiddling with presentations!

There are five different roadmap options located under the Roadmaps section of your account and two roadmap options located under the Releases section of your account. Each roadmap provides a different view into data within your account so you can always create the perfect visualization based on your needs and target audience.

Click any of the following links to skip ahead:

• Starter

• Features

• Now, Next, Later

• Strategy

• Portfolio

• Custom

• Gantt

• Calendar

Starter

The Roadmaps Starter roadmap is a great starting point in Aha! Roadmaps as it allows new users to quickly add data to their account and create their first roadmap. Just drag and drop data onto the roadmap to create it, or use existing data to create a visual to share with your team.

As you adjust items on the starter roadmap, the records are adjusted behind the scenes, so that your data always reflects what you see on this roadmap.

Read this article for more information on creating your own starter roadmap.

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Features

The Roadmaps Features roadmap is the perfect way to illustrate the value that each of your releases will provide to your customers, as it highlights which features will be delivered within each release on a timeline. You can build this roadmap around features or epics.

There are many ways to customize this roadmap to fit your intended audience.

• Use internal release dates for a precise view of your intended release date, and external release dates to show the intended release month or quarter to an external audience.

• Display the progress of releases, epics, or features.

• Check or uncheck various record fields, such as release status, strategic links, or themes.

• Check or uncheck individual features to show or hide them in exported views of the roadmap.

• Track changes to your plans over time.

Read this article for more information on creating your own features roadmap.

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Now, Next, Later

The Roadmaps Now, Next, Later roadmap organizes features, epics, or initiatives into three columns, so your audience can see at a glance what you have planned now, next, and later.

You can customize this roadmap to use the date field and time frame — including fixed, rolling, or custom time frames — that works for your audience. Customize the column names, add explanatory descriptions, and click on any record to open it, answer questions, and adjust data. After presenting your roadmap, you can share it externally as part of an Aha! presentation, a secure webpage, or a regularly delivered email, so that your stakeholders can keep track of your plans and progress.

Read this article for more information on creating your own now, next, later roadmap.

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Strategy

The Roadmaps Strategy roadmap visualizes your workspace's strategic initiatives and helps bring context to your strategy.

You can include more detailed records to show the work needed to achieve each initiative by adding linked releases, epics, or features to your roadmap. Create dependencies or show progress on these records for a more detailed view. Highlight cross-functional dependencies by adding initiatives from other workspaces to your roadmap view.

Read this article for more information on creating your own strategy roadmap.

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Portfolio

The portfolio roadmap hidden by default for new Aha! Roadmaps accounts. If you would like to enable it, customize your menu navigation.

The Roadmaps Portfolio roadmap visualizes your roadmap across your entire workspace portfolio. This roadmap provides a single place to view all of the releases across the workspaces in your portfolio as well as their connection to your strategic initiatives.

You can also visualize how the workspace releases contribute towards your workspace line initiatives through the ability to roll up strategy. Your workspace releases will appear as dots at the workspace line level in initiative swim lanes based on the connection between your workspace and workspace line strategy.

Read this article for more information on creating your own portfolio roadmap.

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Custom

The Roadmaps Custom roadmap is a powerful way to visualize dates in Aha! Roadmaps as it allows users to completely customize what is displayed on a roadmap timeline view. You can even display records on the custom roadmaps that do not have dates associated with them, and add important milestones.

In addition to customizing the data, you can also customize the colors and layout of your custom roadmap, and view dependencies for any record in your roadmap.

Read this article for more information on creating your own custom roadmap.

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Gantt

The Releases Gantt view allows you to visualize releases and epics, in separate Gantts or in one comprehensive view.

Use the Gantt view to plan out the full cross-functional effort required to successfully deliver a new customer experience to market. Teams can optionally display the features within each release on this view as well as create visual dependencies within and across releases.

Read this article for more details on the Gantt view.

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Calendar

The Releases Calendar report is the perfect way to present the delivery of work across Aha! Roadmaps in a familiar calendar-style format. This report allows the visualization of releases, features, and to-dos organized by the date value of your choice.

The Releases Calendar view is hidden by default in new Aha! Roadmaps accounts. If you would like to enable it, you can do so by customizing your menu navigation.

Read this article for more information on creating your own calendar report.

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