How to Create and Utilize an Effective Asana Roadmap

The road to a fully functional product is a long and winding one – and it’s best to have a roadmap. Product roadmaps are a key tool for agile project management. And if your preferred project management tool is Asana, you can leverage it to build and manage your product roadmap, providing a strategic overview while keeping everyone on track.

In this blog post, we’ll dig into:

• The difference between a product and project roadmap
• How to set up your product roadmap in Asana
• Alternative ways to share product roadmaps with stakeholders

One of those alternatives is Visor. Visor lets you combine data from multiple project management tools, including Asana, Jira, and Salesforce. Try it for free today.

Product Roadmap vs. Project Roadmap

Product roadmaps and project roadmaps sound similar, but they serve different purposes and contain different types of information. Here’s how to tell the difference between them so you know which one you need for your situation.

Product Roadmap

A product roadmap gives you a high-level visual resource for mapping out the vision and direction of a product over time. It offers a strategic guide for the product’s development, letting you align stakeholders so that everyone’s on the same page regarding the product’s goals and priorities.

This is a roadmap focusing on long-term strategy and product evolution. Specifically, it focuses more on the features and benefits that customers will care about. It’s also an iterative document that you should regularly update as strategy, the market, or customer feedback changes.

Components:

• Product Vision: The overarching goal and purpose of the product.
• Major Features: High-level descriptions of key features and functionalities to be developed.
• Releases: Planned product releases or versions with associated timelines.
• Goals and Metrics: Objectives for each release and metrics to measure success.
• Market and Customer Insights: Information on market trends, customer needs, and competitive landscape.

Project Roadmap

A project roadmap is an overview of the project’s goals, key milestones, and deliverables. It provides a strategic view of the project, focusing on the “why” and “what” rather than “how” a project will get done.

A roadmap in Visor

It’s designed to communicate with stakeholders so that everyone understands the project’s purpose and how much progress has been made. 

Project Roadmap Components

There are a few key elements you should expect to see in any project roadmap:

• Project Goals: This simply outlines what the project aims to achieve.
• Key Milestones: A roadmap should include significant points or events in the project’s timeline.
• Major Deliverables: You ought to see the main outputs or products of the project in the roadmap.
• Timeline: The basic structure for product roadmap is a broad timeline highlighting when major milestones are expected to be reached.

Take a look at this rundown of the differences between product and project roadmaps to get a clearer view of which is which:

Key Differences

To sum up, while both documents are designed for stakeholders, product roadmaps are long-term and focused on features and what the market is doing. They change quickly, unlike the more structured format of the project roadmap.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s delve into how you can actually create your own product roadmap in Asana.

How to Set up Your Product Roadmap in Asana

Creating a product roadmap in Asana isn’t too complicated. Here’s a step-by-step guide for how you can do it.

1. Define Your Product Vision and Goals

Before diving into Asana, clearly define your product vision and goals. Understanding what you aim to achieve with your product will guide the structure and content of your roadmap.

2. Set Up Your Asana Project

Once you have defined your goals, set up a new project in Asana. Here’s how:

1. Create a New Project: Click on the + Create button in the left sidebar and select Project to start a new project.

2. Select how you’d like to start: Once you’ve selected Project, a popup will appear that prompts you to choose how you’d like to begin – with a blank project, with a template, or from an imported spreadsheet. For the purposes of this tutorial, we’ll start with a template.
   

3. Choose a Template: Asana offers a variety of templates that can be customized to fit your needs. You can choose one that fits your project type or just select the Product Roadmap template.

4. Name Your Project: Give your project a clear and descriptive name and click Create Project to finish up.

5. Choose your layout: Your new product roadmap will open. Decide whether to use the List view or Board view. The List view is great for detailed planning, while the Board view is useful for visualizing stages and workflows.

3. Create Sections for Time Frames or Themes

Organize your project into sections that represent different time frames (e.g., quarters, months) or themes (e.g., feature areas, product components). This helps in segmenting your roadmap for better clarity.

• For Time Frames: Create sections like Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, or January, February, March.
• For Themes: Create sections like Core Features, User Experience, Performance Improvements.

4. Add Tasks for Key Features and Milestones

Under each section, add tasks that represent the key features, enhancements, or milestones you plan to achieve within that period or theme.

• Feature Tasks: For each major feature, create a task with a clear title and description. You can add tasks by selecting the + Add Task button.
• Milestones: Use milestones to mark significant points in your product development, such as feature releases or major updates. You can find these by selecting the carrot icon next to the + Add Task button and selecting Add Milestone.

5. Assign Tasks and Set Due Dates

You can keep your team accountable by assigning tasks to specific team members. Set realistic due dates to keep the project on track.

1. Assign Tasks: Click on the task, select the assignee from the dropdown menu.
2. Set Due Dates: Click on the calendar icon within the task and select the due date.

6. Regularly Update and Review the Roadmap

You should make regular updates a part of your process, since they help maintain the relevance and accuracy of your roadmap. Schedule regular review meetings to discuss progress, make adjustments, and realign priorities.

1. Weekly/Monthly Reviews: Set a recurring task to review and update the roadmap. You can also check in on the roadmap at standups or tag-up meetings.
2. Stakeholder Meetings: Involve key stakeholders in review meetings to ensure alignment and gather feedback.

That’s the basics of how to create an Asana product roadmap and offers enough to get you started. That being said, there are some things to keep in mind before you get started.

Limitations of Asana Product Roadmaps

No system is perfect, so consider these limitations inherent in Asana product roadmaps.

1. There’s a Limited Hierarchical Structure

Asana’s task and subtask system is relatively flat and might not give you the clarity you need if you have projects that require multiple levels of hierarchy. 

2. You Get Limited Customization

Asana’s task fields and project templates offer limited customization compared to more specialized project management or roadmap tools. And you’ll find it challenging to create highly tailored views to match specific reporting needs – for instance, if you need to share different roadmaps with stakeholders and your product team.

3. There Are Issues with Integrations

Say your marketing team uses Asana, but you have to keep up with what DevOps is doing in Jira. While Asana integrates with many other tools, setting up and maintaining integrations between project management systems can be complex and sometimes unreliable. In addition, some advanced features you might need for more comprehensive roadmap management may only be available through third-party integrations, which can complicate the workflow.

4. Sharing with Stakeholders Can Get Expensive

Asana charges by the seat, meaning stakeholders who may not use Asana regularly will need subscriptions if you want them to keep up on your team’s activities. That can add up over time. 

In other words, though Asana is a versatile and user-friendly tool for task and project management, it may not give you everything you need to create and manage complex roadmaps. Understanding these limitations is crucial if you’re looking to determine if Asana is the right tool for your specific needs or if you should consider other roadmap management solutions.

Create a Roadmap That’s a Central Source of Truth with Visor

A lot of Asana’s limitations can be addressed by combining the project management system with Visor. 

A roadmap in Visor

Visor is a spreadsheet-inspired workspace that you can use to create truly comprehensive product roadmaps. When you create a roadmap in Visor, you’re not limited to just one source of project management data. Instead, you can pull from multiple sources, sharing data from Asana, Jira, Salesforce, and other tools so that your project roadmap can encompass data from multiple teams.

There’s also plenty of room for customization. You can choose how hierarchies appear, what colors are applied, and most important, what data is shared with whom. You can create unlimited views that can be customized for different audiences. 

It can also help you keep Asana costs down, since Visor doesn’t charge per viewer – just per active user. If you want to share your roadmaps with stakeholders, you can do that on a broad scale and never get charged for those additional views. 

All this to say, Asana is a great tool, but it can do even more for you with Visor. Try it today for free.

If this article was helpful, consider reading these related articles:

1. 5 Free Agile Product Roadmap Templates Your Team Can Use Today
2. Jira Timeline vs. Advanced Roadmaps: A Guide for Project Managers
3. Jira Milestones in Roadmaps: Your Comprehensive Guide

Moira West

Moira West

Moira West is a former journalist and educator who has spent the last nine years writing about technology, data management, and more. She is excited to now bring her expertise to Visor. When she's not working, she spends time with her family, paints, bakes, and writes more -- just for fun.