Product Roadmap Reports using Microsoft Project

How to summarize your product roadmap into a single report using Microsoft Project and OnePager Pro.

When executives need to understand the entire product roadmap for a company, it can be difficult to pull all the pieces together and summarize them in a single chart. If you keep a high-level product plan in Microsoft Project, you can quickly turn it into an executive summary roadmap using OnePager Pro from Chronicle Graphics.

OnePager Pro is an add-in for Microsoft Project, which means it can create roadmaps quickly and easily based on the information you are already tracking for each product line. You can download a free trial of OnePager Pro and follow along with these step-by-step instructions to create your product roadmap summary:

1. Start by opening your product roadmap in Microsoft Project. If you haven't created the roadmap yet, it's easy to do, and might look something like this:
   
   



2. If you want to only show the roadmap at an executive level, use a flag column ("Flag 20" shown above) to filter the elements of your roadmap that you want to include in your report.
   
   
3. Click the OnePager Pro button on the Microsoft Project toolbar or Add-ins tab.



4. When the import wizard appears, give your roadmap a name, as shown below, and click on Create new project view.
   
   
   
   
5. OnePager Pro will import all of the roadmap items that you flagged in step 2, and will create a roadmap summary that looks like this:
   
   
   
   
6. The roadmap shown above is a good start, but we may want to modify it slightly to make it easier for executives to understand. Start by going to Home->Project view properties. On the Rows and Swimlanes tab, collect tasks by the "Level 2 summary name", as shown below. This will collapse each product into a single line and let you see each phase of the product development lifecycle.
   
   
   
   
7. Now, go to the Task Bars tab, and color-code each task based on the "Name":
   
   
   
   
8. With a color for each phase of the product development lifecycle, we no longer need to label each item on the page. Before leaving the Task Bars tab, uncheck the Task Labels box to hide the task labels:
   
   
   
   
9. After clicking OK, OnePager Pro will redraw the roadmap, and you can make other minor adjustments to create a roadmap that looks like this:
   
   

Once you have polished your roadmap, you copy and paste it into a PowerPoint presentation, or attach it to an e-mail to executives. OnePager Pro makes it easy to create product roadmap summaries quickly and easily out of Microsoft Project.

Get started today by downloading a free trial or attending one of our demonstration webinars.