General Information
Name: Roadmap Planner
Vendor: KeepSolid Inc.
Hosting options: iOS, macOS downloads (no Windows yet).
Cost and plans: A free plan for one user, then monthly subscriptions starting at $4.99 per month. Prices drop if you add more users or functionality. You can also get discounts if you pay annually.
Languages: English
Goodbye complicated slide decks and spreadsheets
Roadmap Planner is an easy app that helps you create strategic plans. It is ideal for portfolio managers and programme managers who have many phases to manage. They also want a high-level overview.
Business owners who wish to plan their company’s future would also benefit. The vendor’s website suggests that top athletes would also appreciate the ability to see a road map for their professional goals.
You should create a strategic plan and keep it handy while you make decisions about projects or other things. Keeping your eyes on the end goal will help you stay focused.
It’s flexible so you could adapt it for planning anything high-level, such as writing a book or your wedding.
It’s easy to get started
Although the company is located in the US, their marketing copy looks like it was written by someone who doesn’t speak English. This shouldn’t discourage you. To get started, you don’t need to have much help, if any.
Templates are included in the software so that you don’t have a to start from scratch. After you have completed a few steps, the picture below shows how it looks. To add a shape, tap the + icon and then tap the button to link it to the roadmap items.
You can create a strategic plan using swim lanes and icons to highlight key areas. The 21-day trial period lets you try the Professional plan. You will automatically be switched to the Free plan, which has basic functionality, when it expires. Upgrade your subscription to continue accessing the full set productivity features.
Roadmap Planner: Benefits
You can customize the look of the tool by changing colours, fonts, and more. You can also add icons to your roadmap items to make them easier to read and call out the most important elements. There are many icons to choose from, but you can’t create your own.
These are the settings you can customize. This is where you can add tasks, notes, or projects to a section of the roadmap to ensure you don’t forget about what that particular element of your strategy is about. Although it is not meant to be used in the same manner as an Agile backlog, it can be useful to keep track of everything you thought when you created that particular roadmap item.
You can create a backlog that includes notes about your milestones or projects to remind yourself of the details when you are implementing the strategy. Roadmap Planner also creates a strategic planning plan that is aligned in swim lanes. This allows you to adapt it to any process you want. Although it is flexible, I think if you do a lot of process maps, you will find other products that are more suitable.
You can display your roadmap as a presentation on a large screen or print it as PDF. This will allow you to share it in many ways.
I tested it a few days before the major update was released to the app. As you can see, there were some feature changes such as the addition of milestones.
Roadmap Planner now includes milestones. You can also mark the percentage of tasks completed (hmm, we’re moving into project management territory here! Interface improvements and a back-end update to speed the app.
Roadmap Planner Limitations
I tried the software on my iPad. It wasn’t easy to make a nice looking map.