Project Roadmap Software Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best tools that I’ll cover in this article.
- 2. Wrike — Just enough functionality in this tool to handle your roadmaps in the same place where you have your project.
- 6. GanttPRO — A tool with roadmap templates to help beginners or give you a head start on your roadmap
- 10. ProjectManager.com — Progress on bars allows your stakeholders to see where your project stands.
Do you get impostor syndrome as a DPM? I know I had it for a while. It seemed like my only skill was that I was an organized person that knew a little bit about everything but not enough to be considered an expert. Anyone else could do my job if they tried, and it was non-strategic whatsoever.
If this resonates with you, you may want to give a thought to project roadmaps. Project roadmaps are the strategic foundation of our projects and programs. They allow us to communicate to stakeholders the big picture and how it impacts their goals. For example, you can use the now-next-later framework.
In this article I’ve selected project management tools that I believe you might be using at work. I decided on them because I want to find out if I can use some of their features to build a project roadmap instead of adding another tool to your collection.
Let’s see if I was able to do it! Stay with me.
Overview Of The 10 Best Project Roadmap Software
Here’s a brief description of each roadmap software to showcase each tool’s best use case, and noteworthy features. Feel free to read how I picked the software on this list at any moment.
monday.com
Custom status fields with background colors for more clarity.
Monday.com is a hyper-customizable project management tool that can help teams work through simple and complex projects. Although it needs time to get used to all that you can tailor, it makes it easy to have one tool that does multiple things.
In this case, that means it can handle your project roadmap creation! Yay! As you can see in the screenshot above, you can group the different items you’ll show your stakeholders. The client can see in one glance all the important dates, and if the project has any flags raised or dependencies.
Tip: start a blank project and add column fields as you see fit. Try to have your colored column separated to prevent confusion, you don’t want your board to look like the Cirque Du Soleil poster.
monday.com integrates with Roadmap, Infinity, and thousands of other apps through Zapier.
monday.com is free for up to 2 users and paid plans start at $8/user/month and offers a 14-day free trial.
Wrike
Just enough functionality in this tool to handle your roadmaps in the same place where you have your project.
Wrike is a collaborative work management platform that proved just enough to handle a roadmap. Since most of my intention with a roadmap is to let others know how tasks are progressing, if we have encountered problems or the impact on our goals, the project information window is key to communicate this.
This is one place where you can keep this valuable information. Wrike’s available editing tools should be enough to let you create headers, add images, link to external sources, and even attach files. Therefore, if you still want pretty visuals, you could prepare them in a Google doc, connect Wrike to it, and attach the file directly to this window.
Wrike offers 400+ pre-built native integrations, including integrations with the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.
Wrike is free for up to 5 users. Paid plans cost from $9.80/user/month and come with a 14-day free trial.
Celoxis
Best project, resource, and financial management for enterprise
Celoxis is a comprehensive project portfolio management (PPM) software that's well-suited to the needs of enterprise-level businesses. It offers features to help you plan projects, manage resources across projects, and track project expenses and time. You can use it to create alignment across teams and map out complex, interconnected projects.
You can easily set up a comprehensive project plan in the software using the Gantt chart tool. Milestones, dependencies, timelines, and more can all be established. The tool includes color coding, recurring tasks, and inter-project dependencies. When it comes to managing your resources, you can allocate work based on capacity, location, and other factors, and you can also assign multiple resources to one task.
You can also establish critical paths in the system, and use them to track your project as it progresses. To help you manage your workflows, there are pre-built apps available. These cover things like issue and request management, bug tracking, and more.
The software integrates with several other tools, including Google Drive, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, Jira, Slack, Salesforce, Google Calendar, Outlook, Evernote, and QuickBooks Online. You can also access additional integrations with a paid Zapier account.
Paid plans for Celoxis start from $25 per user, per month. A 30-day free trial is also available.
Height
Best for businesses of all sizes and industries
Height is a SaaS product that helps businesses create and manage project roadmaps to track their progress and achieve their strategic goals. It's designed to help teams stay on track and focus on the big picture rather than getting bogged down in the details.
Why I picked Height: I chose Height as one of the best project roadmap software for project strategy because it's intuitive and easy to use, even for non-technical users. It's also highly customizable, which makes it ideal for businesses of all sizes and industries.
Standout features:
One of the standout features of Height is its visual roadmap editor, which allows you to create custom roadmaps with milestones, tasks, and dependencies. It's also easy to collaborate with your team, assign tasks, and track progress in real-time. Another great feature is its customizable project templates, which help you get started quickly and ensure you're following best practices.
Integrations:
Height integrates with popular project management tools like Jira, Asana, Trello, and GitHub, making it easy to sync data between systems and avoid duplication of effort.
Miro
Best flexible virtual whiteboard with a template library
Miro is a virtual collaboration tool that can be used by teams to generate project ideas, organize and prioritize initiatives, and map out workflows. It provides digital whiteboards, and team members can use different shapes, lines, and icons to contribute to the board and collaborate in real-time. The software is flexible for all kinds of use cases, and can be an effective tool for project roadmapping and strategy development.
A large library of templates is included in the software, covering different use cases like brainstorming, agile workflows, mapping and diagrams, and strategic planning. Different types of roadmaps can be developed to suit your team's specific business function and your company's industry. Text and sticky notes can be added to boards to create context or exchange feedback, and timers, clustering, and voting tools can be used to support decision-making.
The software integrates with various other project management and workplace tools. You can connect it to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Workspace, Asana, monday.com, Jira, Dropbox, Notion, and ClickUp, among others. A free plan is available and paid plans start from $10 per user per month.
GanttPRO
A tool with roadmap templates to help beginners or give you a head start on your roadmap
GanttPRO is a software that seems to understand what project managers need. To date I cannot find something I dislike about this software. I knew it had potential to build a roadmap because of its Gantt chart capabilities but never thought it would be this easy.
Where you build your roadmap will depend on if you are a visual person or not. If you are not, head over to the list view, where you can add a progress column, status, cost, and actual cost to start your roadmap. If you prefer visuals, do the same but from the Gantt view where you will also get timeline bars with shading that show task progress.
GanttPRO integrates with JIRA Cloud but does not list any other native third-party connections.
Pricing starts at $7.99 and has a 14-day trial.
Airtable
Best for its robust database features
Airtable is cloud-based project management software that offers a unique blend of database and spreadsheet features. Its core functionality is similar to a spreadsheet but has more advanced features. This database approach allows users to store large amounts of data, including text, links, and images. The platform enables users to create visualizations like charts, calendar views, and maps. Users can set up shared workspaces within the software and invite team members to collaborate on projects, allowing for accessible communication and sharing of progress reports and updates regarding project roadmaps. Users can receive real-time notifications via the platform or email, informing them of any updates or changes.
The software offers templates for project management, with customizable fields that allow users to tag progress, users, and assignments. The templates are ideal for teams working on similar projects that want to use a standardized platform. Users can rearrange data easily from spreadsheet-like tables to Kanban boards, calendars, or gallery views. This flexibility lets project managers get an overview of their project progress in the most visually compelling way that works for them. Tasks can also be prioritized as per their importance, giving teams the flexibility to focus on urgent concerns. It can also share data with different software, such as Gmail, Slack, and Trello, and it can automatically update and report on these systems through its API.
Airtable makes it easy to filter projects based on time frames, team members, or specific keywords. These filters can be saved and are readily available for future use. Its sorting options allow users to view data in ascending or descending order, helping them see what's most important. Users can quickly identify trends or issues that must be addressed, making project strategy more effective. Airtable also has a mobile app that enables users to access their project strategies, tasks, and data on the go.
ProductPlan
Roadmap tool that has templates for almost any project need.
ProductPlan is a roadmapping tool with everything you need to build the perfect roadmap. Whether it's an internal roadmap, technology roadmap, agile roadmap, adding lanes, comments, or collaborating on live roadmaps, they got you covered.
First, there’s so many templates that you might find what you need to get started. If you want to build your own, you can also do that and then start dragging elements from the toolbox that will show on the right to your roadmap. You can also color-code your bars according to your project goals.
Even though it’s not a traditional project management tool, this can handle all your project, program, and product roadmaps. Want to add this tool to your collection?
ProductPlan integrates with Jira software, Azure DevOps, and thousands of other apps through Zapier.
Paid plans start at $49/editor/month and come with a 14-day free trial.
Asana
Prepare your project plan and project roadmap at the same time.
Asana has a robust Business plan that includes timeline and portfolio management features. Although the time at which we create a project roadmap varies, if you are a dpm who builds their project plan before the project roadmap, you’ll love Asana.
This software allows you to practically build your project plan and project roadmap at the same time! How, you ask? Well, they have a multiple nesting feature that allows you to create a task and assign it to multiple projects. This means that when you get to a task or milestone that should be included in the roadmap, simply assign it to that project within the task details.
Asana integrates with Airfocus, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Creative Cloud, JIRA Cloud, Salesforce, Tableau, Slack, Clockwise, MS Office 365, Google Calendar, Gmail, Power BI, Outlook, ServiceNow, JotForm, Google Drive, Looker, Vimeo, DropBox, Trello, GitLab, and a growing list of other apps. Plus, a plan with Zapier or Tray.io can let you access other apps to connect with Asana.
Asana is free for up to 15 users and 3 projects. Paid plans start at $10.99/user/month and offer a 30-day free trial.
ProjectManager.com
Progress on bars allows your stakeholders to see where your project stands.
ProjectManager is a powerful project and portfolio administration tool. Its interface is reminiscent of MS Project, but has interesting additions. One of them is how they calculate progress, which is based on 3 different completion stages and averaged with other subtasks to show overall progress.
Because of this visual progress bar, I had to stick with a timeline for this roadmap. I believe that the easier it is for clients to see the overall status, the less questions they have. Want to show them more or less information? You can toggle information display options in the Gantt settings.
ProjectManager integrates with MS Project, Excel, Office 365, Salesforce CRM, QuickBooks, Xero, Dropbox, Desk.com, JIRA, Hubspot, Slack,Zendesk, Evernote, OneLogin, OneDrive, and the complete Google Suite. They also have a powerful REST API to help you build against internal or external tools.
ProjectManager has a free plan for up to 3 users. Paid plans start at $11.50/user/month and have a 30-day trial.
The 10 Best Project Roadmap Software Comparison Chart
Here is a convenient table where you can compare the tools we just covered. If you want to expand your research beyond these tools, we have more in the next section.
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | monday.com Custom status fields with background colors for more clarity. | 14-day free trial + free plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Visit Website |
2 | Wrike Just enough functionality in this tool to handle your roadmaps in the same place where you have your project. | Free plan available | From $9.80/user/month | Visit Website |
3 | Celoxis Best project, resource, and financial management for enterprise | 30-day free trial | From $25/user/month | Visit Website |
4 | Height Best for businesses of all sizes and industries | 30-day free trial | From $8.50/user/month | Visit Website |
5 | Miro Best flexible virtual whiteboard with a template library | Free plan available | From $10 /user/month | Visit Website |
6 | GanttPRO A tool with roadmap templates to help beginners or give you a head start on your roadmap | 14-day free trial | From $7.99/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
7 | Airtable Best for its robust database features | Free plan available | From $24/user/month | Visit Website |
8 | ProductPlan Roadmap tool that has templates for almost any project need. | 14-day free trial | From $49/user/month | Visit Website |
9 | Asana Prepare your project plan and project roadmap at the same time. | Free plan available | From $10.99/user/month | Visit Website |
10 | ProjectManager.com Progress on bars allows your stakeholders to see where your project stands. | 30-day free trial | From $16/user/month | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list but are worth your consideration.
- Roadmunk
Open API for you to build your own integrations.
- Kantree
Best for a wide selection of customization options
- Visor
Flexible project management platform with custom workflows & collaboration tools
- TeamGantt
Project settings window that can be used for a quick snapshot of your project roadmap.
- ClickUp
Docs with embedded timelines as widgets for a perfect roadmap document.
- airfocus
Task cards that will give you tons of information in just one view.
- Hive
Extra creativity required, but able to handle your project roadmaps.
- Productboard
Product roadmap tool that allows you to share progress and receive feedback to inform iterations.
- Aha
Visual roadmap tool with centralized customer feedback and collaboration capabilities.
- Toggl Plan
Work management platform with a drag and drop timeline builder.
How I Picked The Best Project Roadmap Software
I evaluated and compared the most popular roadmap tools on the market, both for their reviews and user interface. Then I weighed factors that make software a good option for this level of project planning, and created an evaluation criteria list. This is how I evaluated the finalists:
- Platform familiarity: Since we are actively trying to reduce the amount of tools you use every day, I selected tools that you might already be using for your projects.
- User-friendliness: I want to evaluate if the project management tool in question has what it takes, visually, to communicate to stakeholders what the roadmap demands. Also, if I can come up with a workaround for those who don't have it.
- Integrations: I will see which tools have integrations or power-ups that can help you work with a third-party app that has the potential to improve those roadmaps.
- Pricing: I look at the cost of these tools, and if they have a free version or free trial we can use to test your specific use case.
Project Roadmap Software FAQs
Find answers to common questions other people ask about this topic.
What Is A Project Roadmap?
Is A Project Roadmap A Gantt Chart?
How Do You Build A Roadmap?
What key features should I look for in project roadmap software?
What's Next?
I would love to hear about the ways you are developing your project roadmaps! Please leave me some ideas in the comments section.
Related tool lists:
- Best Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Tools
- Project Management Dashboard Software
- Enterprise Project Portfolio Management Software
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