- Strategic Roadmap Template
- Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tool Download
- Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tools
Unlike most traditional Strategy Roadmap techniques, upBOARD’s online Strategic Roadmapping software tools allow any team or organization to instantly begin working with our web templates and input forms. Our digital platform goes far beyond other software tools by including progress dashboards, data integration from existing documents. How to Use Your Product Roadmap as a Communication Tool 1. Tweet your hearts out! #prodpadtalks HOW TO USE YOUR ROADMAP AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL 2. An artefact that communicates the direction you’ll be going in order to fulfil the product vision. Tweet your hearts out! #prodpadtalks 3. Developing a unified communications strategic plan and transformation roadmap by Eric Sineath In spite of the untold dollars spent on marketing the term, Unified Communications (and/or Collaboration—UC or UCC) has been the victim of unclear definitions at best and is often defined differently by vendors and their customers.
Reading Time: 3 minutesUpdated on Feb. 07, 2020: We’ve stopped support of Roadmap Planner but the Roadmap feature is now available in our new goal-oriented platform – Goals by KeepSolid. This business solution provides the same opportunities to plan and execute your strategies and even more. Check out Goals by KeepSolid and stay tuned for its updates!
Being a project manager means being the mini CEO of your project. You have to plan the development of your project, control the implementation of updates, and manage people in your team. Your key responsibilities include creating clear objectives and carrying the project to success. In order to fulfill these requirements and be productive, you should keep up to date with modern technologies for project management and adopt them in your daily work.
In the present-day reality, there are plenty of project management tools. But which of them should you choose? Well, Roadmap Planner team is here to help you. We’ve analyzed the market of project management software and created a list of top 4 free tools to increase your productivity. Let’s check them out!
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Best free project management software
Each software has its own purpose and so you can use all of them in the complex. The free project management tools are as follows:
1) Goals
Available plans: Free, Business, Enterprise
This software is specifically designed to help you manage projects, always staying ultimately focused on achieving goals set. For each project you set its primary objective, or target, and create a mind map of goals you need to reach. Each goal is then split into tasks which you can assign to the team members in charge. Tasks, in their turn, are allocated to relevant sprints.
When a sprint starts, you can manage it via Kanban board, where you move tasks across the columns To Do, Analysis, In Progress, Review,Done, and get a neat visual representation of your project’s progress.
With the Free plan you can manage 1 project, create a team of 5 users, add 30 tasks, and get 24/7 support from customer service.
2) Roadmap Planner
Available plans: Personal, Business, Custom
Roadmap Planner is a strategic planning tool that will help you retain clear vision of your project. Using this high-quality software you can visualize your project plan, edit it, and make your project work like clockwork. This project management tool is the best choice for long-term planning. You can easily set tasks and milestones in the Gantt Chart and monitor your project development.
Originally, the app had a free plan, but as the app evolved and improved, all its plans are available now at a charge. However, there is still a whopping 14-day trial, so you have plenty of time to test all its features including team collaboration and decide if this project management tool is perfect for you.
3) Slack
Available plans: Free, Standard, Plus
When you start a new project with your team, the communication tool is a must. Slack is one of the most popular solutions for corporate communication which will help you to bring your team together. This free project management tool has all the necessary functionality, from messaging to screen sharing. You can separate needed discussions by channels and receive messages on any device. Slack also offers advanced search and type filters.
The free plan offers an ability to search up to 10 thousand messages and 1-to-1 video calls. Among the disadvantages is regular clearing of your messages history.
4) Evernote
Available plans: Basic, Premium, Business
In order to stay organized and productive in our fast-evolving world you should always note your ideas and insights. Evernote is the best free project management software to store your notes in one place. This software has built-in task management features and comes in handy to share your insights and ideas with your team.
Came up with a new idea? With the basic free plan you can take a note, send it to your teammates, and set permissions for editing. The only drawback is the inability to edit notes with your colleagues at one time.
Bottom line
That’s all for today! We hope that our article was useful for you and you’ve found your new perfect software. What was the best project management software that you tried? Share your answers in the comments below, we’ll be glad to expand our list!
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Save time with free roadmap templates for Excel and PowerPoint
Roadmaps are excellent visual tools that help you articulate your business vision to your clients and executives. But as useful as they are, creating them is a long and challenging process. With our pre-built templates, you can spend less time creating your roadmap and more time managing your project.
On this page you'll find five of the most common roadmap templates you can use in your next stakeholder meeting, developed in two versions for easy use with your usual MS Office tools:
- a roadmap template for Excel, where you can use standard Excel features like shapes and colors to build your roadmap manually
- a roadmap template for PowerPoint, where you can use the Office Timeline Pro add-in to create your roadmap automatically or move the shapes by hand if you don't have Office Timeline Pro yet
Top 5 free roadmap templates
Explore our series of roadmap templates for Excel and PowerPoint especially designed to save you time and get you started quickly:
Strategic Roadmap Template
- 1. Product roadmap template
- 2. Project roadmap template
- 3. Technology roadmap template
- 4. IT roadmap template
- 5. Strategy / Business roadmap template
Choose from these most popular roadmap examples, download and customize them with a few clicks to make them suit your project.
1. Product roadmap template
A product roadmap is a high-level overview of your product strategy and how that fits into your business vision. It can show both the strategic side and the practical side of your product offering, the reasoning and the planning behind your implementation decisions.
Your product roadmap template can include important aspects like product features, iterations, and the releases that are planned in the future, and you can represent them on the roadmap as key milestones, tasks or on different swimlanes. Visualdesigner pro 4 4.
To help you fast track your next product strategy meeting, here are two pre-populated templates that you can easily customize in Excel and PowerPoint (using the Office Timeline Pro add-in).
Product Roadmap Excel Template
Download Excel TemplateProduct Roadmap Powerpoint Template
Download PowerPoint Template2. Project roadmap template
When managing any kind of project, you'll probably need to create a project roadmap, which is a strategic outline of the project goals and the key deliverables. When you build it, it's best if you present project tasks, milestones, and goals or initiatives grouped on various swimlanes.
The project roadmap is an extremely useful tool for stakeholder buy-in and communication, since it helps create a common understanding on the strategic reasons for sponsoring a project. When all stakeholders are on the same page, you can overcome obstacles easier and deliver your project on time and within budget.
Use these templates below to turn your project roadmap presentation into an effective meeting. Choose between Excel and PowerPoint (with the Office Timeline Pro add-in) to create a project roadmap that would impress your stakeholders.
Project Roadmap Excel Template
Download Excel TemplateProject Roadmap PowerPoint Template
Download PowerPoint Template3. Technology roadmap template
A roadmap can be a useful tool when it comes to a product or project, but it can just as easily help you make strategic decisions regarding your technology investments. And since roadmaps are strategic planning instruments, it's useful to create a technology roadmap to document your infrastructure initiatives too. You can organize the swimlanes to include infrastructure solutions, tools, or processes that are in place today and what's envisioned for the future.
Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tool Download
Working with templates can make things a lot easier for you and save you hours or work. Check out these examples of technology roadmap templates we've created for Excel and PowerPoint (and the Office Timeline Pro add-in) to get started faster.
Technology Roadmap Excel Template
Download Excel TemplateTechnology Roadmap PowerPoint Template
Download PowerPoint Template4. IT roadmap template
Another frequent type of roadmap you may be creating is an IT roadmap, which is basically an overview of the way your organization uses IT systems to achieve its business goals. For example, an IT roadmap can show the strategic plan created to migrate your organization's data or adopt a new tool.
You can include various IT initiatives like apps, internal processes, or new technologies and you can use color-coded swimlanes to represent each initiative or goal. You can use the IT roadmap to show current capabilities or the developments that are planned.
Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tools
Here's an example of an IT roadmap template that you can download and change the deliverables to make it work for you. There's an Excel version and a PowerPoint one (with the help of the Office Timeline Pro add-in) so you can choose whichever suits you best.
IT Roadmap Excel Template
Download Excel TemplateIT Roadmap PowerPoint Template
Download PowerPoint Template5. Strategy roadmap (or Business roadmap) template
A visual representation of the key moments that mark your strategic business initiatives is extremely useful, especially if you need to include different themes and span across a longer time frame. Communication with stakeholders becomes easier if you show them a strategy roadmap, a more general plan that explains the overall vision for growing your business.
The strategy roadmap (or business roadmap, as it's sometimes called) can present your initiatives or themes on different swimlanes and include current state, long-term goals, and future steps needed to implement the business strategy.
Discover the strategy roadmap templates we have built using Excel and PowerPoint (and the Office Timeline Pro add-in). These will help you create a simple but clear strategy roadmap for your next stakeholder meeting and show off your presentation skills.
Strategy Roadmap Excel Template
Download Excel TemplateStrategy Roadmap PowerPoint Template
Download PowerPoint Template If you need any help with choosing a roadmap software, check out our dedicated section on roadmap tools.