3 starter roadmap examples built on a whiteboard

Last updated: August 2024

Product managers are prolific "whiteboarders." Many of you use whiteboards for a lot of things, from solo ideation to collaborating with your team on product idea brainstorms, stakeholder mapping, quick feature prioritization, and more. But there is one whiteboarding use case you might not have considered: roadmapping.

Now, if you use sophisticated roadmapping software, you are probably in the habit of creating roadmap plans and detailed visuals to showcase your work. So the idea of roadmapping on a whiteboard might feel overly simplistic. But there are times when it can save you some effort, help you think creatively, and provide visual clarity — especially in the early stages of product planning.

Whiteboards, product plans, and roadmaps — try it all in Aha! software.

You can think of these whiteboard roadmaps as first drafts of your more robust roadmap plans. In this guide, we will share some whiteboard-based roadmapping examples to help provide a clearer picture of why this can be effective and how it works. Keep reading, or use these links to jump ahead:

Why should you build a roadmap on a whiteboard?
Examples of what whiteboard roadmaps look like
Go from a whiteboard roadmap to a real product roadmap

Why should you build a roadmap on a whiteboard?

Aligning early-stage planning with your product roadmap is critical — otherwise, you risk disconnecting powerful ideas from the product innovations they fuel.
Claire George
Director of product marketing, Aha!

With help from purpose-built tools, creating a roadmap is faster and easier than ever. Roadmap software allows you to quickly generate and customize all types of visual roadmaps for any audience. But the process of roadmapping is still (and will always be) challenging work. It takes meaningful effort to even get to that point of building the roadmap itself. A lot of strategic thinking, exploration, and stakeholder alignment come first.

And in those earlier stages, it can be helpful to give people something to react to. An initial visual gets thoughts flowing and conversations rolling before you define a full, detailed roadmap. Drafting up a rough version of your plans on a whiteboard is a simple way to do this. For example, you might create a roadmap on a whiteboard when:

You want to visualize early concepts on a timeline, even if features and dates are not defined yet.
You want to gather initial feedback before building out a complete plan.
You are planning for different scenarios and need to think through when it makes sense to release each new enhancement.
You are trying to anticipate dependencies that will affect your roadmap timeline.
You need to share upcoming initiatives and broad areas of work (but not the details) with stakeholders.
You want to engage your product team during planning meetings with a more intriguing visual.

Whiteboard roadmaps help you not only get a head start on setting plans and gaining alignment, but also get you excited to think big and sketch out how product plans might take shape. Whiteboards let you bring in colorful and collaborative elements such as emojis, comments, sticky notes, and votes. These help make the process more engaging and delightful for stakeholders (and yourself!) early on.

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Get started with roadmap examples on a whiteboard

In reality, you could build a quick version of any type of roadmap on a whiteboard. (And we have several related templates you can explore.) But in the early stages of roadmap planning, it is a good idea to stick to broader, more thematic roadmap types with fewer firm details. That way, you can communicate overall timing and upcoming work while still staying flexible as plans materialize.

Let's look at some roadmap examples that are effective for early-stage planning on a whiteboard: a strategic roadmap, a Now, Next, Later roadmap, and an epics roadmap.

Strategic roadmap

Overview	Strategic roadmaps help you visualize high-level initiatives fast. Use them to communicate your product direction and initial timelines for major bodies of work — all while sharing a bird's-eye view of progress.
What it includes	Strategic initiatives Related epics Progress bars Quarterly and monthly timelines
Who to share it with	Business leadership Product team Other cross-functional stakeholders

Start using this template now

Now, Next, Later roadmap

Overview

A Now, Next, Later roadmap is ideal for drafting near- and long-term plans. Use it to bucket work into broad time frames for delivery, map out the scope and sequence of new functionality within strategic themes, and align on your early plans with stakeholders.

You can also use it to share plans with customers without committing to specific functionality or timing.

What it includes

Varying time frames (Now, Next, or Later)
Strategic initiatives
Colors to indicate theme
Features or ideas in sticky notes

Who to share it with

Cross-functional stakeholders
Customers

Start using this template now

Epics roadmap

Overview	An epics roadmap showcases when you plan to deliver each epic by release with high-level monthly targets. Use it to guide early-stage planning discussions and feature prioritization.
What it includes	Upcoming releases Related epics Related goals Tags Colors to indicate status Quarterly and monthly timelines
Who to share it with	Product team Engineering, product marketing, and other stakeholders invested in your release timeline

Start using this template now

Each of these roadmap examples can help you capture initial plans on a whiteboard in slightly different ways — you decide when to use them based on what you want to convey and who you share them with. And when you share, invite collaborators to add comments and reactions directly on the whiteboard. That way, you can incorporate feedback and make changes in the same place before moving your tangible plans into roadmapping software.

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Go from a whiteboard roadmap to a real product roadmap

Sometimes, a whiteboard roadmap is just a simple exercise or sketch. You might hang on to it for reference along with other planning docs in your product wiki. But other times, you will want to carry it forward into your real roadmap plans. With Aha! software, this is easy to do while still avoiding any copying and pasting or duplicate work.

If you use Aha! Whiteboards with Aha! Roadmaps, you can convert whiteboard objects into roadmap records. That means any sticky note or shape on a whiteboard can transfer seamlessly into your formalized plans — as an idea, feature, or other record type — in only a few clicks.

A user converts a sticky note from an Aha! Whiteboards brainstorming session into a feature on Aha! Roadmaps

Convert whiteboard elements into ideas, features, epics, and more. Then, add them directly to your roadmap.

And once your plans are in motion, you can also do the reverse. Take any features in your backlog or on your roadmap and pull them into a whiteboard. That way, you can make quick adjustments to priorities while working in a visual space — and then see those changes go live right on your roadmap. Check out these articles on converting whiteboard content to Aha! records and viewing Aha! records on whiteboards to learn more about how this works.

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