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What is a business roadmap and how to create one with examples

If you’re working in the world of software development, then you’ve almost certainly heard of a product roadmap — the document that helps communicate the direction and progress of the product to internal teams and external stakeholders.

A product roadmap shows what high-level features will be delivered and roughly in what order and timeframe. It also facilitates communication with different groups about what is likely to happen and when without giving too much detail on how it’s being done.

This vision supports the organization in developing a product. Just as importantly, it ensures that all parties are aware of the product direction so they can adjust activities based on this summary of features.

However, although you might have seen a product roadmap , not every organization has a business roadmap. What is this document, what does it include, and how do you know if you even need a business roadmap?

What is a business roadmap?

As with a product roadmap, a business roadmap is designed to facilitate communication to various stakeholder groups on the direction of the business and plan of action to achieve business goals.

The business roadmap is a high-level visualization of objectives the organization hopes to achieve and in what order. It’s effectively a representation of the proverbial big picture.

A business roadmap should give the organization and everyone in it a general outline of short- to medium-term business goals. This allows relevant stakeholders to make appropriate business decisions that support the delivery of items in the roadmap .

Business plan vs. business roadmap

I know what you’re thinking: isn’t a business roadmap just a business plan ? The short answer is no.

The fundamental difference between a business plan and a business roadmap boils down to the granularity of detail. A business roadmap is a much higher-level overview than a business plan, which is more precise and thorough.

For example:

• A business roadmap might say that in Q1 of this year, we’re looking to expand the sales team in Europe
• A business plan might say that in Q1 of this year, we plan to hire two people in France at a cost of $100,000, two people in Germany at a cost of $100,000, and a European sales manager at the cost of $100,000. These people will all need sales materials, phones, etc.

This variation in depth means that anyone looking at a business roadmap will know what the outcomes are going to be but not specifically how the business intends to get there. Someone reading a business plan should understand the individual steps the business plans to take along the journey.

Here’s an example of what a business plan looks like:

An example of a business roadmap

When you dive deeper into a business plan, you’ll also see that it covers aspects such as market analysis, sales and marketing plans , equipment requirements, and detailed financials. This provides a full, detailed view of how the business plans to operate over the short-to-medium term, which you can’t get from a business roadmap.

It’s more “We’ll have moved into a new office” rather than “We’ll be paying X for rent, and Y for new office equipment, and Z for the redirection of the post…”

How to create a business roadmap

When creating a business roadmap, it’s important to consider that, despite the relatively high level at which they present future activities, they do take a considerable amount of effort to produce.

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As with any roadmap , there’s a need to understand inputs and priorities from across the organization and bring these together into one coherent vision. This means taking the following steps:

Develop business objectives

Identify business capabilities, identify business limitations, identify activities that facilitate the objectives, develop an outline roadmap.

Start at the beginning: what are you looking to achieve?

Your objectives should be self-contained, achievable goals that are clear for everyone across the organization to understand.

In the example business roadmap described above, the first line of the roadmap looks at the high-level primary objectives for the business — e.g., launching the business in new markets (Europe, the United States, and Canada) and moving the UK office.

From these objectives, the various functions across the business can determine their own individual milestones along the journey toward success.

Once you’ve established your objectives, the next step is to determine what is already in place to help you achieve them.

Ask yourself questions such as:

• What exists within current structures that supports your goal?
• Are there teams capable of achieving them?
• Do they have the knowledge required to succeed?
• Do they have enough funds?
• What tools are available to use in pursuit of the objectives?

The other side of business capabilities is business limitations:

• What doesn’t exist within the current organization that is needed to support your goals?
• What key skills are your teams missing?
• Where are new sources of financing required to move toward your objectives?

The final area to consider is what activities need to occur to achieve your objectives. For example:

• What specific tasks must the team complete to drive user behavior?
• What actions are requires to resolve or compensate for any limitations identified in the previous step?

Once this process is completed, activities designed to drive the business toward its objectives commence. It becomes necessary to group these tasks into some form of sequential order. That’s where the business roadmap comes in.

Let’s look at an example. If, in Q2, we’re planning to achieve X, which of our activities across our different business areas need to happen in Q1 and Q2 to reach that point? These are the building blocks of our business roadmap.

Each block represents an achievable milestone for that business area, clearly defining what they are looking to achieve at that point in time.

Common mistakes to avoid

If you’re new to business roadmaps, you’re bound to stumble here and there the first time you try to create one. It takes practice.

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However, some common mistakes businesses make include:

Not clearly defining business goals

Setting too many goals, setting unrealistic timelines, not getting business or customer validation.

Without a clear, overarching business vision, it’s impossible to dive down into the various business areas and set departmental milestones. An unclear objective leads to a muddying of activities and a lack of focus when moving forward.

It’s tempting to think you can get through huge amounts of work when looking at the long time periods considered in a business roadmap. However, because business goals are usually quite large in scale, the number of activities you can realistically achieve is relatively small.

Too many goals leads to frustration because your team will never be able to deliver on what they set out to achieve.

Unrealistic timelines make the invalid assumption that you can get through more activities than you think we can.

A roadmap is a high-level visualization of your milestones, but a roadmap entry is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the work required to deliver on those goals. Sometimes big things take time.

What’s the point of creating a roadmap if everyone isn’t onboard with it? There’s no value in creating a beautiful-looking roadmap if, as soon as you get into month one, someone holds up their hand and asks, “Why aren’t we doing X?”

An example business roadmap (template)

If we look at our example business roadmap as described above, one of the business objectives in Q3 is to launch our service in the US. This primary goal for the business will drive the business roadmap entries for our various business areas.

Sales needs to understand what our capabilities currently are in the US and what might restrict us from achieving this objective. Then, it must develop some departmental goals that help the business move toward its overall objectives. This will leave us with some roadmap entries such as:

• Hiring a new sales team in Q2
• Launching the service in Q3

Finance needs to understand the company formation and financial reporting rules within the US, as well as how the launch will be funded, which will lead to roadmap entries such as:

• Form a US company
• Secure US operational funding

Operations need to determine what we need to complete to support US recruitment and obtain an office, equipment, materials, etc. Roadmap entries directed at the operations team might include things like:

• Hire a North American team
• Source North American IT equipment

Business roadmap template

To access a full version of the business roadmap example described above, follow this link . If you’d like to use it as a template when creating your own business roadmap, click the link to download the file and, from the menu at the top of the spreadsheet, select File > Make a copy .

Start with your business roadmap

Although there is a considerable amount of effort that goes into creating a business roadmap, this document is essential in supporting the successful operation of a business.

The vision provided by a well-written roadmap gives focus and support to the entire organization and ensures that all areas of the business are driving toward the same destination.

At the end of the day, that’s what we want: a route to success.

Featured image source: IconScout

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What is a business roadmap? Complete guide with examples

Ever been lost on a road trip without a map? That’s what running a business can feel like without a business roadmap .

What is a business roadmap and how does it help businesses?

A business roadmap is your guiding star, the compass that keeps you focused. It helps align your team toward shared goals.

No sailor braves the sea without navigation charts. And no successful entrepreneur should embark on their journey without this crucial tool.

Intrigued? Stick around! We’re going to dig deep into creating a strategic roadmap. You’ll learn about its elements and strategic planning techniques. We’ll also share real-world examples to put things into perspective.

By the end of this article, you’ll have everything you need to chart your business path.

Understanding business roadmaps

A business roadmap is a visual tool that outlines the direction and vision of your company. It’s not just a schedule. It provides context around tasks and shows how each piece fits into the bigger picture.

This roadmap gives you an overview of your entire enterprise at once. To-do lists and project plans don’t provide this high-level visibility.

In contrast, a business roadmap shows you all the moving parts in one glance. Everything from strategic initiatives down to operational details is visible. But what does it entail?

Difference between business roadmaps & business plans

There’s a common question about business roadmaps versus business plans. How are they different? Both tools aim for success by guiding actions within an organization. But their approaches differ.

Business plans typically provide detailed instructions about daily operations.

Roadmaps highlight strategic goals and provide a high-level view of how to achieve them.

Now that we understand the difference, let’s explore who should be involved.

Who uses business roadmaps?

The simple answer is – everyone in your company. From the CEO down to entry-level employees. Having access to this roadmap can help align teams towards common objectives. Here’s how.

Executive team . The C-suite, including business owners, CEOs, CFOs, and CTOs, use roadmaps for high-level strategic planning and decision-making. They guide company-wide priorities and align them with long-term objectives.

Middle management . Managers and team leads use roadmaps to translate strategic goals into actionable plans. This helps to effectively allocate resources .

Project managers and team members . They use roadmaps to understand their role in the bigger picture.

Marketing and sales teams . These departments rely on roadmaps to align their campaigns and sales strategies with the company’s growth objectives.

Product development teams . They use roadmaps to prioritize features , plan releases, and align product evolution with market needs and business goals.

Human resources . HR departments use roadmaps to align talent acquisition, training, and development plans with the company’s future needs.

External stakeholders . Investors, partners, and advisors reference business roadmaps to understand the company’s strategic direction and potential for growth.

Customers and clients . Public roadmaps are a great way to invite clients behind the scenes. This establishes trust and boosts loyalty.

Check out some outstanding public roadmaps here .

Let’s explore business roadmaps more.

The elements of a business roadmap

Getting started with your own business roadmap? Here are some essential elements to include.

• Vision. Your vision sets the direction for where you want your company to go. The vision should align with your organization’s mission statement and values.
• Goals. They help measure progress towards achieving our overall vision. They need to be specific and measurable so we know when they’ve been accomplished.
• Milestones. They break down goals into smaller steps. This makes them more manageable over time. It’s also easier for everyone on the team to understand their role in reaching these objectives.
• Strategy . How will you stick to your vision and achieve your goals? Include market analysis, competitive landscape, and the unique value proposition of your business in this section. Clarify how your strategy differentiates from competitors and addresses market needs.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) . These metrics help track the progress of your strategy and goals. Choose KPIs that are relevant to your business objectives and can provide actionable insights. They should be quantifiable and regularly reviewed for adjustments.
• Resources . Detail the resources you need to achieve your goals. Include manpower, technology, and financial investments.
• Risk management plan . Identify potential risks and challenges that could impact your roadmap. Develop contingency plans for these risks to ensure your roadmap remains on track. This might involve scenario planning or establishing thresholds for pivoting strategies.
• Stakeholder engagement plan . Define how you will communicate and engage with key stakeholders throughout the roadmap’s implementation. Think about internal communication with team members and external communication with investors, partners, and customers.
• Timeline . Provide a realistic timeline for achieving the milestones and goals you set. Include start and end dates for key initiatives. Be flexible to accommodate changes.
• Review and update mechanisms . Establish a process for regularly reviewing and updating the roadmap. This way the roadmap will stay relevant and adapt to changes.

This may seem like a lot. But remember: the more detailed you can get at the beginning, the easier it will be in the long run. Don’t worry – we’ll walk you through each stage in the following section.

Creating your business roadmap

The first step to creating a robust business roadmap is choosing the right business roadmap template. No single template will be suitable for everyone. So it’s essential to select a template that corresponds with your requirements.

Pick the right template based on your needs

Consider your current position and the desired outcome. This will help you choose a format that guides strategic decision-making.

Ask for your team members’ input. Executives, product managers, and anyone else who will use the template should have a say. If they also have direct experience dealing with customers’ feedback, that’s even better.

Crafting your business roadmap isn’t just about plotting milestones or setting deadlines. It’s more than that. It’s an iterative process filled with brainstorming sessions, discussions, and lots of revisions. Here’s how to structure that process.

• Understand your business context

Start by analyzing your business’s current situation. Think about things like:

• Market position
• Competitive landscape
• Internal capabilities

This understanding will influence the type of roadmap you create.

• Define long-term vision and short-term goals

Clearly articulate where you see your business in the future. Set achievable short-term goals that lead towards this vision. This step is crucial for setting the direction of your roadmap.

• Engage with stakeholders

Involve various stakeholders to gather diverse perspectives and insights. Involve:

Their input can help refine your objectives and strategies.

• Select a suitable format

Choose a template that fits your business’s style and needs. It could be a timeline, a theme-based roadmap, or a matrix format. This will depend on what best represents your strategy and goals.

• Detail strategic initiatives

Identify key initiatives or projects that will drive your business towards its goals. These should align with your overall strategy and vision.

• Incorporate flexibility

Ensure your roadmap can adapt to changes in the business environment. Set periodic review points to reassess and adjust your roadmap as needed.

• Communicate and prioritize transparency

Develop a plan for communicating your roadmap throughout the organization. Transparency in the roadmap process encourages buy-in and alignment across teams.

• Monitor and adjust

Regularly track progress against your roadmap, using the defined KPIs. Be prepared to make adjustments as market conditions or internal priorities change.

By following these steps, you create a comprehensive, adaptable, and effective business roadmap.

Remember: the goal isn’t to have a static document. Instead, you’re aiming for a dynamic tool that evolves with your business needs and market conditions.

Key takeaway

Creating a powerful business roadmap starts with picking the right template. It should align with your company’s needs. Your roadmap isn’t static. It evolves as your business grows and market conditions change.

Implementing your roadmap

It’s time to start using your business roadmap. Let’s discuss how you can put it into action.

• Communicate the roadmap broadly

Begin by sharing the roadmap across the organization. Use meetings, emails, and internal portals to ensure everyone has access to it.

• Set clear responsibilities

Assign specific tasks and roles related to the roadmap. Make sure each team and individual understands their responsibilities and how their work contributes to the bigger picture.

• Integrate roadmap with daily operations

Link the roadmap’s objectives with day-to-day activities. This integration ensures that the roadmap is a part of regular work processes.

• Training and support

Provide training and resources to teams and individuals. Help them understand and implement their part of the roadmap effectively.

• Monitor progress regularly

Set up regular check-ins to monitor progress against the roadmap. Use these meetings to address any challenges and celebrate achievements.

• Encourage collaboration and feedback

Foster an environment where team members can collaborate and provide feedback on the roadmap’s implementation. This collaborative approach can lead to innovative solutions and increased buy-in

• Adapt and evolve

Be prepared to make adjustments to the roadmap as you implement it. Changes in the market, technology, or internal company dynamics may necessitate updates to the plan.

• Measure success

Use the KPIs you defined in the roadmap to measure success. Regularly review these metrics to evaluate the roadmap’s effectiveness.

Let’s quickly address how project management fits into the business roadmap.

Project management and business roadmaps

A business roadmap can be instrumental for project management. It helps you see where you’re headed, ensuring every step aligns with your strategic goals.

You need sound project management skills to effectively use your business roadmap. The process starts with defining objectives. These serve as guideposts on your journey toward achieving strategic goals.

You also have to break down complex tasks into manageable chunks or ‘milestones.’ Think of them as rest stops along a highway. They let you know if you’re making good time and staying on course.

Try incorporating Agile practices in project management. Agile roadmapping allows for flexibility and adaptation. This makes responding to changes in the business environment or project requirements easier.

Don’t forget to implement tracking systems. This will help monitor the progress of projects against each milestone you set in the roadmap. Regular reporting helps identify and promptly address any deviations.

Speaking of deviations, let’s discuss how business roadmaps assist with changes.

Business transformation with business roadmaps

Steering your company through transformations needs a clear direction and vision. That’s where a business roadmap steps in.

Pivoting with precision

A roadmap isn’t just about setting a straight path. Sometimes, you need to make strategic pivots based on new data or market conditions. And when such times come, your business roadmap can guide the way.

Evolving with the market

Business roadmaps help navigate market changes and industry evolution. They can identify emerging trends and adapt strategies accordingly.

Change management

When the market evolves, your business needs to adapt. This is where change management comes in.

A business roadmap facilitates effective change management. It outlines the steps to transition from current operations to future goals. It also manages the impact of change on employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

Innovation planning

You can plan and track innovation initiatives with the help of a roadmap. These roadmaps guide product development in line with long-term strategic goals.

Building organizational resilience

Businesses need to anticipate and respond to changes. That’s called organizational resilience. And roadmaps help prepare for uncertainties and ensure business continuity.

Continuous learning and improvement

Roadmaps promote a culture of continuous learning and improvement. They encourage regular review and revision based on performance metrics and feedback. This leads to ongoing optimization of business strategies.

Strategic communication

Effective roadmaps serve as communication tools. They align internal and external stakeholders around the vision for transformation. They ensure that everyone understands the direction of the business and their role in its success.

Leveraging data for decision-making

Incorporating data analytics into roadmaps allows for more informed decision-making. You should analyze things like:

• Market data
• Customer feedback
• Internal performance metrics

The power of strategic foresight

Foresight can be powerful when navigating change. Think of it as having binoculars at sea. A well-crafted business roadmap helps anticipate market shifts.

This ‘future-proofing’ element allows you to adapt quicker than your competitors.

Let’s see what all of this looks like in real life.

Examples of effective business roadmaps

Let’s get real about roadmaps. They’re not just fancy charts or buzzwords tossed around in boardrooms. A business roadmap is a powerful tool that can shape your company’s future.

The Spotify model

A fan favorite among Agile enthusiasts is the Spotify model. 

It features:

• Small, autonomous teams (squads) focused on specific tasks
• Larger groups (tribes) focus on a business area or product
• Cross-functional groups (chapters) for continuous skill development
• Informal guilds for shared interests

This type of roadmap prioritizes flexibility over strict timelines. This allows teams to adjust as they learn more about customer needs and market trends.

Salesforce’s visionary roadmap

Another inspiring example comes from Salesforce. Their vision-focused business roadmap clearly shows where they aim to be within 12-18 months. Still, it remains open-ended enough to accommodate shifts along the way.

This roadmap covers:

• Initial planning
• Defining company vision and goals
• Building a project team
• Developing a rollout plan
• Upgrading the system for enhanced functionality
• Integrating with various third-party services
• Implementing new products and modules
• Constantly improving processes
• Data administration

This roadmap reflects a clear vision and a well-structured implementation strategy.

Tesla’s master plan

Tesla’s roadmap is ambitious. It encompasses broad goals like the shift to sustainable energy and the production of affordable electric vehicles. This roadmap stands out for its visionary approach and commitment to long-term objectives. Those extend beyond traditional business goals.

Google’s roadmap for AI and computing

Google’s roadmap in AI and computing focuses on innovation and leading-edge technology. It’s focused on research and development of new technologies. Most notably, it’s committed to solving complex problems through AI.

Amazon’s roadmap for ecommerce and cloud services

Amazon’s roadmap is notable for its customer-centric approach and diversification into cloud services with AWS. It demonstrates how a roadmap can evolve to adapt to new market opportunities and technological advancements.

What is a business roadmap?

A business roadmap is a strategic plan that outlines an organization’s vision, direction, and goals.

How does it differ from a business plan?

A business plan is often more static and focuses on financial projections. A business roadmap is dynamic, allowing for shifts based on changes in the market or internal factors.

Who uses a business roadmap?

Everyone within an organization. Top-level executives make decisions about the business strategy. Team members use it to understand what to focus their efforts on.

Why do you need project plans too?

A project plan helps break down each initiative into actionable tasks. This makes it easier for the team to know exactly what steps they need to take.

What makes a good business roadmap?

A stellar business roadmap is clear, flexible, and aligns with your company’s strategic goals. It guides decision-making and communicates the big picture to all stakeholders.

What are the three phases of a roadmap?

The trio stages of any roadmap include planning, executing, and monitoring progress. These phases ensure that your business moves forward intentionally.

Conclusion: why do you need a business roadmap?

Steering your business without a roadmap is like venturing into the unknown. But you’ve taken that first step to understanding what a business roadmap truly is.

This article taught you about its elements and how it differs from business plans. You discovered who uses them and why they’re so essential.

You learned about using project plans alongside roadmaps. And we explored practical examples to make these concepts more relatable and understandable.

We hope that you’ll refer back to this guide when creating your business roadmap. Stay in touch to learn more about all the aspects of product management.

Maria Vasserman

Maria loves all things creative – writing, photography, movies and beyond 🎥 When she's not creating content to tell the world about Canny, she's either photographing a wedding, jumping at a rock concert, camping, travelling, snowboarding, or walking her dog 🐕‍🦺

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Last Updated on December 21, 2023

• Product management
• Types of roadmaps
• Strategy roadmap

What is a strategy roadmap?

Last updated: March 2024

Vision, strategy, and roadmaps build upon one another — you need all three to create winning plans and realize your goals. Brian de Haaff Aha! co-founder and CEO

A strategy roadmap visualizes your plan for accomplishing your goals through specific efforts in a given time frame. You can create an overarching strategy roadmap that encompasses a company's broad strategic vision or a more discrete strategy roadmap for a certain product . Either way, the purpose of this roadmap is to create a link between where you want to be and the actions you will take to get there.

Building and sharing a strategy roadmap clarifies what the overall organization or an individual product team is working toward. The roadmap aligns everyone around shared objectives and gives valuable context about how effort ties to impact. Folks can make the connection between how their daily, weekly, and monthly work supports the broader business or product goals.

Create and share beautiful strategy roadmaps — try Aha! Roadmaps today.

See goals, initiatives, and supporting work on a strategy roadmap in Aha! Roadmaps .

You will find the information in this guide useful whether you are building a strategy roadmap for a business or a product. Feel free to jump ahead to any section in the guide:

What should a strategy roadmap include?

Benefits of a strategy roadmap

When to create a strategy roadmap

How to build a strategy roadmap

Strategy roadmap templates.

If you are a product manager , you might be thinking about all of the roadmaps you have built so far in your career. You might even be thinking, "Every roadmap is strategic, what is so different about a strategy roadmap?" This is a valid quibble. All roadmaps should be strategic — rooted in the goals and initiatives you are aiming for as you complete your work.

Many of us think of roadmaps as related to a specific effort. That could be the plan for building a new product, delivering an important release, or simply a collection of upcoming features. Instead of zooming in on the details of the work like a release roadmap or features roadmap , a strategy roadmap shows strategic areas of investment and major efforts.

A strategy roadmap is broad, not granular. Yet it still conveys a lot of important information about the company or product direction. No matter what type of strategy roadmap you are building, you will likely want to include the following:

Initiatives

Timeline for completion

A strategy roadmap for a software product may also include:

Epics or main areas of investment needed to achieve the initiatives

Assigned groups for each body of work

This is a good time to delineate a strategy roadmap for a company from a strategy roadmap for a product. A company strategy roadmap (sometimes called a business roadmap ) communicates the organization's vision. For example, a company strategy roadmap could include time-bound goals, such as reaching a specific revenue target or growing the business by a certain percentage by the end of the year. It could also show the major areas of investment from cross-functional teams such as product, engineering, marketing, and customer support.

Visualize how the company is tracking against goals on a business strategy roadmap in Aha! Roadmaps .

A product strategy roadmap conveys the product vision , which connects to and supports the larger company vision and goals. A product strategy roadmap also includes time-bound product goals , such as gaining a certain number of new customers or free trial signups each quarter. The roadmap will highlight product initiatives, or themes of work, that product and engineering are responsible for. (See the image at the top of this guide for an example.)

Vision vs. mission vs. strategy

Business roadmaps vs. product roadmaps

What are the benefits of a strategy roadmap?

It takes deep thought and deliberate planning to move from where you are now to where you want to be. Put simply, a strategy roadmap helps you visualize the strategy for achieving your vision . It is a powerful tool for communicating your desired destination, rallying the entire team around the "why" behind their work, and guiding priorities.

A quick primer on the difference between vision, strategy, and a roadmap :

Vision — Establishes where you want to go and why it matters

Strategy — Captures the goals, initiatives, and approach for achieving the vision

Roadmap — Visualizes how you will achieve the strategy along with a time frame for completion

A strategy roadmap for a company and a product are anchoring for any team. You can use these visual tools to help inform prioritization decisions about which work to pursue next, what to postpone, and what to say "no" to. Only invest in the efforts that will bring you closer to your goals and initiatives.

Here are some core benefits of a strategy roadmap:

Alignment — Unites everyone around shared objectives

Clarity — Declares what the organization or product team is striving toward

Focus — Orients the team around what you will accomplish and how you will deliver value

Inspiration — Motivates teammates to achieve and excites people about what is coming

It is worth pointing out that a strategy roadmap is typically an internal document. But some companies choose to share high-level roadmap views with various external groups such as customers , investors, shareholders, or partners.

For example, many companies have contractual agreements with customers. With a customer-facing strategy roadmap , you can show general time frames for when the team plans to work toward certain efforts or deliverables. Public or venture-backed companies might also create external strategy roadmaps to give context around what shareholders or investors can expect. Typically, these types of external roadmaps are even more high-level than internal ones — showing only select areas of investment and general dates.

When should you create a strategy roadmap?

Setting a bold strategy takes time and careful consideration. It can be tempting to bypass strategy and jump right into making your business or product roadmap — so you can get to the exciting work of building new things faster. But if your roadmap is not rooted in strategy, it often ends up being a collection of random efforts or somewhat-related features. It is difficult to deliver real value without a strong anchor to tie your work to.

This is why company leaders typically create a strategy roadmap early — soon after founding a new business, coming up with a new offering, or deciding to expand into a major new market. Similarly, a strategy roadmap for a product also comes early in the product development process . Usually, company or product leaders will build it after the company and product strategy is defined, but before creating more detailed plans (such as release or features roadmaps).

For existing companies and products, you will likely make or update the strategy roadmap on a set cadence — either annually or in line with your organization's strategic planning cycle. What matters is that you regularly revisit the strategy roadmap to ensure that you stay responsive. Changing business needs, evolving customer preferences, and significant market shifts are all compelling reasons to think about adjusting your strategy for the future.

• How often should roadmap planning happen?
• How to build a roadmap for a new product

Roadmaps make strategy work

Ready to create your own strategy roadmap? If you are new to the process, it can certainly feel daunting. This is why many companies and teams use purpose-built roadmapping software like Aha! Roadmaps . You can set strategy, link features to goals and initiatives, and create and share a variety of roadmap types with both internal and external audiences.

Here's a brief overview on how you can get started in our software. (Before you begin, you will want to open a trial account of Aha! Roadmaps so that the steps below are easy to follow.)

Build your initiatives. Visit the the Strategy tab in Aha! Roadmaps and navigate to Imperatives . Here, capture your goals and initiatives for each level you would like — such as company, platform, or product level. If you are defining product-level initiatives, you can map them to the overall company strategy, too.

Link initiatives to goals. Once you have defined your company or product goals, select the corresponding goal (or goals) that each initiative supports. Depending on the level of specificity you want to show on your strategy roadmap, you may want to build out epics or releases that will support the goals as well.

Adjust the time frame. Navigate to Roadmaps , then Strategy to see your strategy roadmap visualization. Aha! Roadmaps automatically populates your data — goals, initiatives, epics, releases, and more — into the roadmap view. Drag and drop each initiative to update its time frame, adjusting the start date and end date. At the top of the roadmap, you can also control the schedule you want to display — three months, six months, one year, or custom dates.

Customize your roadmap. You can show progress toward goals with shaded bars, sort initiatives (by workspace, start or end date, rank, status, assignee, or name), or hide releases for an even higher-level view. You can also color bars by status, assignee, type, initiative, or release.

Share widely. When you are happy with your strategy roadmap, you can share it in a variety of ways — add it to a whiteboard, presentation, or dashboard, or export it as a PDF or PNG image. This makes your roadmap accessible to leadership, the product team, other groups in the organization, customers, and more.

Editor's note: Although the video below still shows core functionality within Aha! software, some of the interface might be out of date. View our knowledge base for the most updated insights into Aha! software.

• How to visualize data on your product roadmap
• How to customize the right roadmap for your audience

How should I present my roadmap to the executive team?

Thus far we have shown examples from Aha! Roadmaps , which is the best way to build strategic roadmaps that show exactly how your areas of investment will help you reach business or product goals. But some teams may want to sketch out their strategic direction on a whiteboard first.

This is why we created simple roadmap templates in our digital notebook and whiteboarding tool, Aha! Knowledge . You can craft documents, design stunning whiteboards, and share your direction with teammates. The best part? When you are ready, you can convert the details on your whiteboard directly to real work in Aha! Roadmaps — no need to duplicate data.

To get started quickly, take a look at the guided templates available in Aha! Knowledge. These templates give you an easy and consistent way to create all kinds of product documents. This consistent approach is especially important in large companies with several product teams — but of course, all types of organizations can benefit from the clarity and structure that templates bring.

The strategy roadmap template is below. This template makes it easy to visualize and share your high-level plans quickly. Fill in your details and customize the template to display exactly the information your team needs.

Start using this template now

A strong strategy roadmap can transform the way the team approaches their work — inspiring everyone to rally around the direction you are heading. Use your strategy roadmap to inspire meaningful conversations about what you will achieve and why it matters. With a goal-first mindset, you can accomplish great things together and make a real impact on customers and the business.

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What is roadmap software?

Understand what your team needs in a roadmapping tool.

Product roadmap template

Use this template to showcase how planned work aligns with strategy.

Latest functionality in Aha! Roadmaps

See what's new in Aha! Roadmaps — the complete product management solution.

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7 Business Roadmap Examples To Hit Your Goals

You might have heard of roadmaps before—they’re great for planning, communicating, and aligning organizations on key initiatives and strategies. 

But, without the right tools, creating a comprehensive roadmap from your existing strategy and planning documents can take time and effort (and a lot of head-banging). And the human factor means that you’ll inevitably have to deal with inaccuracies and manual updating.

In this article, we’ll give you seven business roadmap examples and templates to get you started on the right foot with your roadmap planning.

We'll also cover the benefits business roadmaps can offer your organization and show you how to build one in 5 easy steps. 

Here’s what we’re going to cover:

• What Is A Business Roadmap? 

Business Roadmap Example

More business roadmap examples and roadmap templates.

• How Do You Create A Business Roadmap?
• Create And Track Your Roadmap With Cascade 🚀  

What Is A Business Roadmap?

A business roadmap is a visual strategic planning tool that presents a company’s strategies, strategic and operational objectives, and action plans in a Gantt chart. 

Business roadmaps serve as a guide, illustrating your business plan from the present to your envisioned success. They provide a holistic view of the organization's business goals across different departments and can be crucial for communicating big-picture initiatives to stakeholders.

They can also help you:

• Keep everyone focused on critical strategic initiatives .
• Encourage cross-functional collaboration by breaking down silos.
• Monitor critical milestones, dependencies between projects, and bottlenecks in your business strategy.
• Identify underperforming areas and risks so you can decide your next move before it’s too late.  

This Business Roadmap Template is a solid foundation to build a business roadmap from scratch. 

It comes prefilled with examples including: 

• Focus areas: The main strategic priorities that you and your teams will be working on. 
• Strategic objectives: The outcomes you want to achieve. 
• Projects: A group of actions to be executed to achieve the desired outcome.
• KPIs: Metrics that will help you measure your progress toward objectives. 

With this template, you can turn your business plan into a comprehensive strategic roadmap that can guide your strategic decisions and efficiently communicate the necessary steps, people involved, and timelines to stakeholders.

💡 Best for: Business owners, entrepreneurs, or leaders who want a solid template to create roadmaps in their business and strategic planning process.

👉 Click here to get your FREE Business Roadmap Template.

💪 Tips to customize your roadmap in Cascade:

1. Get your template and sign up to Cascade for free. The template will be automatically added to your workspace. 

2. Customize your template with your organization’s goals, business objectives, and KPIs.

3. Switch to the Timeline view to visualize your strategic plan as a Gantt-style roadmap.

4. Make adjustments and track progress to keep your business roadmap updated.

5. Bring your team on board to collaborate on your roadmap and ensure everyone is working toward the same outcomes. 

Looking for something more specific? Here are our top picks for other types of business roadmaps you can use to ensure you’re moving forward toward your goals. Each template comes pre-filled with examples and has the key elements of an effective business roadmap. 

Strategy Roadmap

A strategy roadmap helps streamline the strategic planning process, providing a clear and concise guide that helps organizations accomplish their strategic goals effectively. 

Try our Strategy Roadmap Template if you’d like to create a strategic roadmap for your business. It has all the features you’ll need to plan and visualize your business's long-term goals.

💡 Best for: C-level professionals, business managers, and team leaders who want to take a more strategic approach to planning and goal-setting. 

👉 Click here to get your FREE Strategy Roadmap Template.

Business Development Roadmap

A business development roadmap helps to guide your business as it expands and evolves. It assists leadership teams or even sales teams in setting clear overall goals and outlines the strategies needed to win in the long term. 

Our Business Development Roadmap Template is ideal for those looking to develop and execute a strategic growth strategy that is comprehensive but easy to communicate. Use it to clarify your organization's growth objectives, pinpoint opportunities, and craft a strategic approach to make the most of them.

Plus, with Cascade’s real-time dashboards , strategy reports , and data integrations , you can execute your business development plan all in one place.

💡 Best for: Executives , and business development managers responsible for taking their business's growth and development to a new level. Applicable to organizations of any size.

👉 Click here to get your FREE Business Development Roadmap Template.

Project Roadmap

A project roadmap helps teams articulate project plans, achieve goals, and monitor progress. It should guide project teams, ensuring projects remain on track, within budget, and on schedule.

Use our Project Roadmap Template to help focus your planning efforts and ensure smooth and successful execution. It has everything you need to outline scopes, establish goals and objectives, allocate resources, and plot deliverables on realistic timelines.

💡 Best for: Project teams, project managers, and project portfolio managers who want to streamline project planning, management, and execution.

👉 Click here to get your FREE Project Roadmap Template.

Product Roadmap

A product roadmap is instrumental in product management by simplifying the complex product creation cycles and communicating imperatives in your product development process. 

If you're looking for a comprehensive framework to steer teams through your product strategy, our Product Roadmap Template will start you off on the right foot.

Use it to outline your new product vision, set clear objectives, and pinpoint the necessary actions and resources to reach critical milestones.

💡 Best for: R&D teams, product leaders, and product teams looking to enhance their product development and planning approach.

👉 Click here to get your FREE Product Roadmap Template.

Technology Roadmap

A technology roadmap provides clear paths for organizations to achieve strategic technological goals and stay competitive through ongoing innovation. It’s also crucial for giving context to long-term technology goals that are often hard to communicate.

Using a visual tool like a roadmap can assist CTOs and CIOs in identifying, executing, and monitoring their technology strategies to support business growth and innovation.

Our Technology Roadmap Template is a great starting point for planning your technology strategy and making sure it runs smoothly. With it, you can establish clear objectives, prioritize projects, allocate resources, and set realistic timelines.

💡 Best for: CTOs, CIOs, and IT leaders planning their technology strategy.

👉 Click here to get your FREE Technology Roadmap Template.

Marketing Roadmap

Marketing roadmaps help you outline key marketing goals, KPIs, and projects. They can also help maintain a clear project direction and timeline and keep teams focused on results.

If you want to build your marketing roadmap, our Marketing Strategy Roadmap Template offers a comprehensive framework to start with your own. Use it to streamline your marketing planning with a comprehensive framework to guide your team through goal setting, objective identification, and action planning.

With this template, you’ll be able to craft a world-class strategic marketing plan that your organization understands and buys into.

💡 Best for: CMOs, team leads, and marketing professionals who want to build a solid marketing roadmap to drive effective marketing campaigns for their business.

👉 Click here to get your FREE Marketing Roadmap Template.

The Benefits Of A Business Roadmap

A business roadmap or any other type of roadmap tool can make a big difference in your planning and execution. Here are the key benefits business roadmaps offer:

• Improved prioritization: Business roadmaps can help identify and prioritize the most impactful actions. This approach ensures that high-priority initiatives receive attention, driving growth and progress more efficiently.
• Increased transparency: For a plan to be successful, you need buy-in at every level. By visually displaying objectives, initiatives, and progress, a business roadmap opens up your strategy to stakeholders. This, in turn, can help build trust, shared ownership, and accountability among team members.
• Confident decision-making: A business roadmap is an instrumental asset for real-time decision-making by providing valuable metrics and context in one place. With them, you get a 4D perspective on performance and quickly identify what is working and where to optimize.
• Greater adaptability: A well-designed business roadmap allows organizations to respond effectively to market, industry, or internal changes. With all data in one place, you get better visibility into how your business performs at every level. This helps you make the right decisions at the right time. 
• Focused execution: Strategic roadmaps bring structure and simplicity to building strategies by breaking them down into high-level objectives, business metrics , and a series of initiatives, milestones, and programs that are executable and trackable. This drives ownership among those responsible for the execution and business outcomes.

How Do You Create A Business Roadmap? 

If you grabbed one of the templates above , then you’re already halfway there. You just need to adjust the pre-filled “dummy data” to make them your own. Click on any element (like focus area, objective, or KPI) and edit away!

If you want to build a custom roadmap from scratch and truly tailor it to your organization's needs , then follow this five-step approach below.

💡Tip: You can use the same step-by-step process if you want to build your roadmap in manual tools like Excel. However, using Cascade offers additional free benefits such as drag-and-drop dashboards and data integrations to automate your performance tracking in one place.  

1. Create your objectives for each focus area

Start by defining your focus areas , which are high-level categories that group your objectives. For example, you might choose Operational Efficiency as one of your focus areas. 

Then, outline short-term and long-term objectives for each focus area, focusing on specific, measurable, and achievable goals. 

💡A key thing to remember: Less is better. Focus on your most critical strategic objectives . This will set the tone for strategic decision-making and ensure everyone is on the same page.

2. Add KPIs to measure performance

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are crucial for tracking progress, evaluating the effectiveness of initiatives, and informing data-driven decision-making. 

In Cascade, you can add KPI to each objective. Define KPIs that are relevant and aligned with your objectives. These will help you monitor progress, identify potential problems, and act before it’s too late. 

3. Assign initiatives and responsibilities 

Successful execution requires action and ownership. In Cascade’s Planner , you can assign key initiatives and projects under each objective. 

This functionality will allow you to co-create project and action plans with your team members and ensure you clearly understand capacities and possible constraints ahead of time. You can also add owners and collaborators to each initiative and KPI to ensure accountability across your organization.

4. Define milestones and a timeline

Milestones and timeframes help set realistic expectations and keep the organization on track. They are also crucial for prioritizing different initiatives in your strategy and ensuring your plan aligns with the company’s broader strategic initiatives .

Establish milestones that mark significant progress and create a timeline to visualize the expected completion of each initiative. 

In Cascade , you can switch to the Timeline View to get a roadmap view of your strategy, planning, and execution. This feature makes it easy to identify which projects are on track and where you need to course-correct.

5. Execute and track progress 

With Cascade, maintaining momentum in your strategy execution couldn't be easier. Use real-time dashboards to track critical metrics and create regular strategy reports to communicate priorities, inform decision-making, and keep everyone moving in the right direction.

Create And Track Your Roadmap With Cascade 🚀 

If you want to get the most out of your strategy, roadmaps are a great addition to your toolkit. 

But creating a roadmap with outdated tools and disconnected platforms is an uphill battle. Don't let multiple spreadsheets, siloed information, and static tools hold you back. You risk running your operations blindfolded and too slow to recognize and seize the opportunity. 

“Cascade provides a readily accessible platform for hosting our strategy and enables us to generate live updates at the push of a button. It has increased transparency and accountability for our strategic priorities and has allowed us to remove silo working and improve alignment. The real game changer from my perspective is the reporting function. Cascade has turned a labor-intensive manual process into something which can be completed in minutes.” - Enterprise customer from Construction Industry  (Source: G2 review )

With Cascade, effective strategic planning and strategy execution doesn’t have to be complex or chaotic where everyone works in different directions. We bring clarity to chaos by bringing together all components of successful strategy execution. 

Ready to take Cascade for a spin? 

Sign up today for free , or book a 1:1 product demo with one of Cascade’s in-house strategy experts.

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Your toolkit for strategy success.

Seven free roadmap templates for creating organization-wide alignment & communication

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Here at Roadmunk, we believe roadmaps aren't reserved solely for product teams—or at least they shouldn’t be.

That’s why we have a roadmap template for every team and department under the sun (keep reading for a walkthrough of our seven most popular templates).

What do we mean by that philosophy of “roadmapping for all”? Well, with an organization-wide roadmapping process in place, you can boost visibility into each team’s goals and see how well aligned they are with you high-level business and product strategies.

For more on the roadmapping process, and to learn how to plan and build your own roadmaps for your company, check out our guide: What is a roadmap?

When you have a collaborative tool that works as a global tool across teams, it creates a culture of alignment. It’s a culture of teams working together, rallying around a plan. And when teams work together, they go a lot further, a lot faster. Latif Nanji, Roadmunk Co-founder.

1. The product roadmap template

For product teams that need a flexible visual tool for improving alignment, communicating strategy and rallying the company around a product vision.

What’s a product roadmap?

For product-driven companies—be it B2B SaaS shops or consumer-facing apps—a product roadmap is essential for organizational alignment. A product roadmap illustrates high-level product strategy and demonstrates how a product will evolve over time. It includes upcoming features and the nitty gritty of product development—like technical considerations and resourcing.

A product roadmap empowers the sales team to lead informed product conversations with prospects, the marketing team to plan campaigns that align with feature releases and HR to determine who to hire and when.

Product roadmap examples

Roadmunk was built with the knowledge that there isn’t just one way to create a product roadmap. Some product teams love key dates, while others prefer an agile approach.

For deadline-sticklers, our template’s timeline view charts how your product will grow and evolve over time. You can organize your team’s tasks into pre-set buckets—including new features or infrastructure. You can also highlight important events, like a feature release, with milestones.

And a swimlane view sorts your tasks according to progress, not time.

P.S. For organizations with multiple product lines, our portfolio template makes it possible to illustrate and communicate a high-level overview of how each different products will evolve and how they relate to each other. Try the portfolio roadmap template.

Try our customizable product roadmap template for free today.

2. The strategic roadmap template

For organizations that need to unify many different departments and stakeholders on the plans to grow the business.

What’s a strategic roadmap?

A strategic roadmap is used to communicate an organization’s vision and mission, illustrating the key steps required to bring these two things to fruition. This roadmap is accessible to every employee, and it helps ensure that every department is ideating and working on initiatives that align with the organization’s bigger strategic aims.

This particular roadmap is created and championed by senior-level stakeholders. Business objectives are generally mapped out across the long-term (over a year or more).

What’s the difference between a product roadmap and a strategic roadmap?

Unlike a product roadmap that outlines what features and initiatives need to be executed in the short term, a strategic roadmap is all about the long game. An organization’s vision and mission are often hefty, audacious goals that can be broken down into smaller, bite-size initiatives over a period of time.

A strategic roadmap helps with that by doing a few things:

• It tells the strategy in story form : A strategic roadmap allows you to stay away from the tactical and nitty-gritty. This is your chance to engage key stakeholders with visuals and narrative.
• It breaks the story down into themes : Product, sales, marketing, HR—with a strategic roadmap, you can show how what each team is working on fits into the big picture.
• It presents the strategy in terms of outcomes and solutions : A strategic roadmap is a great way to show the why and the what (leaving the how out of the picture for the more tactical, team-based roadmaps)

Strategic roadmap examples

Our strategic roadmap template includes a timeline view . Use this view to track your key strategic initiatives and milestones over upcoming months, quarters and years.

Alternatively, if you’d like to be less strict with dates, our swimlane view visualizes your strategic initiatives based on progress.

Download our free customizable strategic roadmap template and start planning great strategies.

3. The innovation roadmap template

For teams that have a self-disruption plan for staying ahead of the market and need a visual communication tool for bringing it front and center.

What’s an innovation roadmap?

An innovation roadmap can be used to map new areas for growth opportunities, testing new ideas, tracking competitors, and keeping up with advancing technologies. Organizations only remain competitive within their markets when they continuously look for new business models and ways to bolster their products with value-added improvements.

This roadmap can help with tracking innovative achievements, like shipped features, against the work that your team is doing to keep sharp—like competitive benchmarking and breaking down barriers preventing new and exciting things from shipping.

An innovation roadmap is generally built and managed by an organization’s product managers and its executives to align all departments on strategic initiatives. They help companies achieve disruption and avoid getting disrupted themselves.

Ideally, an innovation roadmap should help you with:

• Visualizing where innovation initiatives could have an impact on business goals
• Breaking down an innovation plan in terms of possible timelines, potential risks and costs, and business outcomes
• Planning resource allocation for the technical side of testing, prototyping, and evaluating results

Innovation roadmap examples

Our innovation roadmap template includes a timeline view to plan and track what your organization is doing in upcoming quarters and years, while also assessing and preparing for risks.

The swimlane view provides a flexible way to keep track of your game-changing ideas by visualizing progress across key verticals like product and efficiency gains.

Start using our customizable innovation roadmap template for free.

4. The marketing roadmap template

Marketing teams are generally project-oriented, and it’s very common for marketing teams to be slammed with multiple deliverables and initiatives at once. It gets hectic and unmanageable if not documented. Enter the marketing roadmap.

What’s a marketing roadmap?

A marketing roadmap highlights key projects and priorities across all marketing channels and functions, creating clarity in the chaos. It charts all priorities and initiatives across all channels that marketing is responsible for—such as content, digital advertising and events. Creating an in-depth marketing roadmap surfaces a team’s highest priorities and keeps all of its marketers on track. It also servers as a key communication tool to share plans across the whole organization.

There are four versions of marketing roadmap examples that are useful for teams:

• The theme-based marketing roadmap : a quarterly look at the department's key projects. This version of the roadmap is great for showing non-marketers at the company what’s coming down the pipeline.
• The goal-based marketing roadmap : If a theme-based roadmap shows everyone the what, then the goal-based marketing roadmap is perfect for explaining the why. Specifically, this version works to show what the impact will be on the goals that matter (attracting qualified leads, increasing awareness, and converting free trials to users)
• The “we got deadlines” marketing roadmap : Some projects are time sensitive and require a day-by-day launch plan. This format helps teams visualize the resources they need to hit the deadlines.
• The “who’s doing what” marketing roadmap : This roadmap helps you see what everyone is working on within the marketing team to make sure no one is over capacity

Marketing roadmap examples

Our marketing roadmap template comes with two types of views baked in. The timeline view allows you to meticulously plan when key initiatives will unfold across each of your marketing channels.

On the other hand, our swimlane view groups your marketing initiatives into channels and manageable, easy-to-understand timeframes, like quarters.

Start using our free customizable marketing roadmap template .

5. The HR roadmap template

For the HR professional who needs to communicate initiatives around company culture and people ops, as well as build and manage hiring plans.

What’s an HR roadmap?

An HR roadmap is owned by an organization’s recruiters and human resources team to build and manage hiring plans and chart HR initiatives. It visualizes how each department within an organization will evolve and provides a snapshot of the roles being added and when.

This type of roadmap is extremely helpful for:

• Catching gaps in talent
• Ensuring that your organization is adequately resourced
• Ensuring growth is properly balanced across departments

Each department leader can also use this roadmap to flag what resources they need and identify when their team will burst.

This roadmap also provides insight into what HR is working on to make employees happier in their day-to-day life, like changes to their benefits plan, new referral bonuses, etc.

Wondering how we build our HR roadmap here at Roadmunk? Check out this step-by-step breakdown by our HR lead.

HR roadmap examples

Our HR roadmap includes a timeline view so that your organization can see which new hires will be added to the team in upcoming months, quarters or years.

Predicting exact hiring dates isn’t always possible given that some roles are more difficult to fill than others. Our swimlane view brings flexibility to your HR plan.

Download our free customizable HR roadmap template .

6. The technology roadmap template

A technology roadmap outlines how an organization plans to use technology to achieve their goals.

What’s a technology roadmap?

This type of roadmap aims to communicate the strategy behind any new complex technological initiatives happening at a company. Using a roadmap to communicate the “how we’ll get there” of a technology initiative can result in a few outcomes:

• Create alignment on what’s happening with IT projects
• Help CTOS, engineering leads and IT managers can create their own technology roadmaps to align and build clarity around the technical components of their organization
• Efficiently monitor technology considerations and resources within a product’s research and development strategy
• Visualize the administration of internal processes and systems, like information security audits and tracking employee hardware.

Think of ‘technology roadmap’ as an umbrella term with various types of roadmaps falling under it, such as an IT systems roadmap , a development roadmap or a cloud strategy roadmap .

For more resources on how to plan, build and communicate a technology roadmap, check our tech roadmapping hub .

We cover 10 more ways to build a powerful technology roadmap in our free downloadable guide. .

What’s the difference between a technology roadmap and a product roadmap.

Your product roadmap strategizes your upcoming features and improvements to your product. Your technology roadmap, on the other hand, maps out the strategies pertaining to your infrastructure, platform and security that ultimately support your product strategy.

Technology roadmap examples

Our swimlane view provides a high-level snapshot of your technical priorities, and it tracks the progress of initiatives that are in progress, completed or within the backlog.

Download our free customizable technology roadmap template .

7. The project roadmap template

A project roadmap can be used by various departments across your organization—sales, customer success, admin, etc.

What’s a project roadmap?

It’s a roadmap that can be applied to a wide range of projects that involve multiple stakeholders and moving parts. It provides a high-level overview of a project’s objectives, initiatives and deliverables.

What’s the difference between a project roadmap and a project plan?

A project roadmap is different from a project plan. While a project plan tracks each and every tactical detail, a project roadmap instead provides an overview of the most important components and milestones (i.e. the big picture). It aligns teams on key milestones and keeps everyone on the right path.

To learn more about why a project roadmap is a good idea, what it should look like, and what it shouldn’t look like, check out our project roadmap guide for beginners .

Project roadmap examples

Use the timeline view of our project roadmap to see key tasks and deadlines, and how your resources will be allocated over time.

And with our swimlane view , it's easy to quickly visualize which tasks are complete, in progress or waiting in the backlog.

Start using our free customizable project roadmap template .

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4 Example Business Roadmaps

Before we look at some example business roadmaps , and roadmap templates , try this word-association exercise. As you read a word in the list below, think of the first word that pops into your head to form a two-word description of a standard business document. For example, when you read MISSION… you might think STATEMENT.

We’ll include our thoughts below each word, but no peeking.

Ready? Here we go.

(Our thoughts: ROADMAP , or BACKLOG )

(Our thoughts: SUMMARY , or BIOGRAPHY )

ORGANIZATIONAL…

(Our thought: CHART )

(Our thought: PLAN )

If you’re a product manager or other type of entrepreneurial professional who’s responsible for bringing successful products to the market, we’re guessing your first thought when you read PRODUCT was, like ours, ROADMAP . Product roadmaps are, after all, a thing.

We’ll also go out on a limb and assume that when you saw the word BUSINESS, you thought PLAN —and not some obscure type of document like, say, a “BUSINESS ROADMAP.”

When we think of a document that helps capture and communicate a business’s big-picture goals, its strategy for achieving those goals, and its high-level plan for executing on that strategy, we almost always think immediately of a business plan. Besides, business roadmaps aren’t really a thing, right?

The Strategic Value of a Business Roadmap

But wait a minute. When you think of the document that’s best equipped to help a product manager capture and communicate a product’s big-picture goals, its strategy for achieving those goals, and its high-level plan for executing on that strategy, you think of a product roadmap.

And, truthfully, a business plan doesn’t really offer a high-level, at-a-glance strategic view of anything. It’s typically a detailed document, often running dozens of pages, that explains down to a granular level what the business plans to do to achieve its goals.

If a product needs a truly strategic-level document to capture and quickly convey its big-picture plans and objectives—the product roadmap—then wouldn’t any business, and even any specific initiative within a business, also benefit from a business roadmap?

Our answer: Heck yeah!

Consider how strategically useful a properly built business roadmap could be for an entrepreneur organizing her initial thoughts for starting a new business. Rather than forcing her to jump straight into the details—as the typical template for a business plan does—a business roadmap would allow the entrepreneur to start with a high-level overview of the goals, priorities, milestones, resources needed, and other strategic elements of her planned venture.

Here’s an example business roadmap template built (in just a few minutes, in case you’re wondering) using ProductPlan’s roadmap software.

Armed with a business roadmap like this, the entrepreneur would have:

• An easy-to-digest overview of her business’s strategic objectives and plans —which would help her more quickly and compellingly communicate her business idea to investors, partners, and new employees.
• A valuable guide to her business’s initial strategy that she can refer back to periodically during those inevitably chaotic early days, to make sure that all the tasks she and her team are focusing on are still supporting the business’s strategic plan.

More Useful Example Business Roadmaps

In fact, a business roadmap can offer these strategic benefits not only to the launching of a business itself but also to any large initiative within an existing business. With the right roadmap tool, you can build a business roadmap around your new HR plan, for example, or the launch of a new business unit.

And although we at ProductPlan typically see product managers using our purpose-built roadmap software to create, share, and maintain their product roadmaps, our application is flexible enough to provide the same strategic benefits for all sorts of other business initiatives.

Here are just a few example business roadmaps that show how different companies leverage our software to develop their high-level strategy:

An IT Architecture Roadmap , to help IT operations teams build and deploy the right technology infrastructure for a business.

A Content Calendar Roadmap , to help the company’s marketing and communications teams map out their strategy for rolling out new content.

A Marketing Strategy Roadmap , to help the marketing team capture and communicate its department’s high-level goals and plans.

If you’d like to see several additional example business roadmaps—for marketing, development, corporate IT, and product-related strategic initiatives—view our Roadmap Templates page .

And if you’d like to use any of these example business roadmaps as a template to begin developing your own strategic roadmap—which you can build in just minutes—we invite you to try our full-featured roadmap software for free .

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Business Roadmap Template

Establish a clear vision, goals and plans, develop strategies to achieve the key goals of the organization and devise actionable plans to help your team achieve them..

• Multiple pre-made templates
• Collaborate with multiple stakeholders
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Business Roadmap Templates to Scale Your Business to the Next Level

Roadmap Template

IT Implementation Roadmap

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Create actionable business plans with Kanban boards, and advanced formatting options

Start creating your business roadmap with your team to get a clear overview of your tasks and milestones. Use Kanban boards, tables, and shapes to start from scratch, or select a pre-made template for a quick start. Customize text, color, and style to visualize better.

Brainstorm and plan with teams by collaborating and syncing up

Get together with your team to discuss and analyze long-term strategies and approaches. Use whiteboarding capabilities and intergrations to have dynamic discussions. Share the workspace for editing and reviewing with real-time cursors for any number of participants.

Stay on top of business plans by going from planning to execution with task tracking

Go beyond planning to execute business plans with task tracking and smart notifications, all in the same workspace. Assign tasks to team members, set due dates, track progress, and link information.

What is a Business Roadmap?

The business roadmap is a visual representation of your organization’s primary goals, objectives, and strategies. It provides a high-level overview of the big picture without going into finer details while highlighting the tasks, roles and responsibilities, and deadlines. A roadmap is essentially a timeline; you can outline what activities will take place each week, month, quarter, or year.

Another way to look at a business roadmap is as a long-term strategic document that summarizes where the company is heading and the steps needed to get there. One important thing to remember is that business roadmaps provide a certain degree of flexibility. It can be detailed or brief. Activities outlined in the business roadmap can also be changed to reflect current circumstances and the environment better.

Why Do You Need a Business Roadmap?

You may ask why you need a business roadmap when you already have a business plan. The answer is simple. While the business plan is a long and detailed document requiring in-depth reading, the business roadmap summarizes the most critical information needed to understand at a glance. The roadmap gives a general idea about what you should be doing next without any frills attached. Some advantages of using a business roadmap are,

Shows how the company or business will grow

Provides a visual timeline and an illustrative guide on tasks to make progress tracking easy

Acts as a guiding document, helping teams to understand the reasoning behind their work

Helps to keep team members and stakeholders aligned with the company’s vision and objectives

Allows to visualize tasks and deadlines that are relevant to different departments

Helps to analyze the performance of a company for future potential

How Can Teams Benefit from Using Business Roadmaps?

Roadmaps can provide a shared understanding of the project’s or organization’s direction, timeline and priorities. Below are a few ways that a team can use business roadmaps to collaborate.

• Aligns the team around a set of common goals and objectives

A roadmap helps a team to visualize the high-level direction of the project or organization. It can help team members to better understand their roles and responsibilities in achieving the objectives.

• Encourages collaboration

Roadmaps provide a shared understanding regarding the direction of the project/organization and the timeline. To make sure that everyone is on the same page, involve the team members in the roadmap planning process. Working together, the team can develop a shared vision and a sense of ownership.

• Helps to identify dependencies and risks

As the team lays out each and every step, roadmaps can help to identify potential dependencies and risks that can affect the project’s or organization’s success. The roadmap can highlight potential roadblocks and the team can work together to find solutions and mitigate risks.

• Helps to plan, prioritize and track progress of tasks

When strategizing, use a roadmap to plan, breaking down the overall vision into smaller and more manageable tasks and to prioritize what needs to be done. This will also ensure that everyone understands their role in the bigger picture, are on the same page, and will work towards the same objectives.

• Communicates progress effectively

A roadmap is a useful tool to communicate progress to stakeholders and team members. Communication is key to keeping everyone on the same loop about the project’s status and to give a head’s up if any work needs adjustments to meet the upcoming deadlines and goals. Make sure to update the roadmap regularly to include completed tasks and upcoming milestones.

Business Roadmap Examples to Get You Started

Most times, business roadmaps take on a timeline or swimlane view.

1. Timeline view : In a timeline view, the roadmap provides an overview of significant milestones/projects and deadlines by the team. Through a timeline view, you can accurately see each team’s resource and time allocations and how they contribute to the business’s overall growth. Each team will clearly understand how they must structure their work to meet the milestones and deadlines.

2. Swimlane view : The swimlane view is ideal for businesses that don’t want to allocate specific timelines to every task. You can arrange the swimlane view to show projects that are in progress, scheduled, or proposed to see how the business is developing. You can have swimlanes assigned to each department or team while organizing items by timeframes, giving a quick view of the main projects a team is working on at a given period.

There are several different types of roadmaps that you can use depending on your requirement and business function. It is important that you understand which business roadmap is suitable for your business. Some business roadmap examples include,

Business roadmap: The most frequently used roadmap that layout the business’s overall goals, projects, strategies, and deadlines. Most useful for company heads and managers who want to understand how the various departments and allocated resources work together.

Business development roadmap: This roadmap helps to visualize tasks so that you can look at the bigger picture; which tasks contribute to and enhance the business’s growth, productivity and revenue?

Business intelligence (BI) roadmap: Mostly used by business intelligence leaders or managers to visualize BI-related business areas. It maps out the connections between staff, operations, and other internal processes to see what needs to be optimized to grow the business.

Marketing strategy roadmap: Used by marketing teams, the roadmap helps to visualize the connection between marketing initiatives and the organization’s goals/projects.

Project roadmap: Dedicated to projects, this roadmap will focus on one team or a small group of people relevant only to one project. It visualizes the tasks and deliverables with clear timeframes. Useful for project managers.

Department roadmap: This roadmap focuses on a particular department and its goals. Using a department roadmap can help ensure everyone on the team is on the same page and working towards the departmental goals.

IT infrastructure roadmap: Helps to visualize the technology architecture of a business. This is useful for IT teams and professionals to better handle issues and future releases.

How to Create a Business Roadmap Template?

• Start by defining the overall vision and strategy for the business

Define where the business should go. Understand how you plan to build value for your target customer.

Use Creately’s whiteboarding capabilities and intergrations to brainstorm with your team and have dynamic discussions.

• Identify the goals, objectives, and KPIs

Keep your customers in mind when identifying goals, objectives, and KPIs. Use sticky notes and cards to note down important information.

• Prioritize and set strategies and milestones

Devise strategies outlining how you will attain the defined goals. Prioritize according to the importance and include activities and milestones to track progress and success. Strategies can be broken down into different sections as carried out by separate teams.

The team involved in the planning process can come together to dot vote to prioritize on the same canvas. Put together the roadmap template from scratch using tables or Kanban boards or use a premade template. Customize with color themes and styles for better visualization.

• Develop activities and assign tasks, responsibilities, and time frames

Develop your tactics to carry out the strategies by clearly outlining the actions of each department/team. At the same time, generate methods to measure success. Include these activities in the roadmap.

Use the task panel to assign tasks to each department and team member. Set deadlines and include additional information for each activity or milestone using the notes panel. Import documents and images if required.

• Share with others for feedback

Now you can share the workspace with others to review and finalize. Invite your team to contribute. Use in-line commenting to have discussions and follow-ups on the same canvas.

Once completed, share your business roadmap with the rest of your organization. Download it in PNG, SVG, or PDF image formats for publishing.

• Now you can streamline your tasks and track progress

Start tracking the progress and the growth of your business. Use smart notifications to inform about upcoming deadlines and when tasks are completed.

FAQs About the Business Roadmap Template

Yes, there are several differences. Though a product roadmap is sometimes defined as a type of business roadmap, there are some crucial differences between the two. They are,

Business roadmaps are usually developed annually, while product roadmaps are built to accommodate product releases, which could be weekly or monthly

A business roadmap has broader goals, while a product roadmap has goals that are specific and measurable and related to a product and users

Business roadmaps look at work at a higher level with broader milestones and deliverables, while product roadmaps layout day to day work that needs to be completed for each release

To learn more about creating a product roadmap, check out ‘The Quick Guide to Creating a Proper Product Roadmap.’

Make sure that your business roadmap is simple and easy to understand

Include the end goal, short- and long-term goals, milestones, risk factors, timelines, and all steps required to achieve the goal

The roadmap should not be too detailed but should include enough details to understand the direction

Update regularly to reflect the changing goals and environments

Strategize and Plan the Success of Your Business with these Creately Templates

Scrum Product Roadmap

Product Backlog Board

Business Capability Map Template

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A Roadmap for Today’s Entrepreneurs

A conversation with MIT Sloan’s Bill Aulet on how to navigate a fast-changing landscape.

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Many people aspire to entrepreneurship but we all know it’s a high-risk endeavor. Bill Aulet, the Ethernet Inventors Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has for decades studied what it takes for start-ups to succeed and advises the next generation of founders on how to do it. He discusses the key trends and changes he’s seen over the past few years, and outlines concrete steps anyone can take to get a new venture — including those within larger organizations — off the ground. Aulet is the author of the newly updated book Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup.

ALISON BEARD: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Alison Beard.

So many people in business today aspire to entrepreneurship. Whether you have an idea for a start-up or want to launch something new within a larger organization, it’s seen as a path to a more fulfilling career – and financial gains. At the same time, we know that entrepreneurship is really hard. We’ve all heard the stats on how many new ventures fail, and we’ve seen entrepreneurial efforts quashed by the corporate machine.

But our guest today says that we can de-risk the process and create companies that don’t just make a lot of money, but also have a positive impact on the world. He’s helped thousands of students and executives map out paths to successful businesses, and we wanted to speak with him about where he sees entrepreneurship today.

Bill Aulet is the Ethernet Inventors Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He’s managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, and he’s the author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to A Successful Startup , newly updated and expanded. Bill, thanks for being on the show.

BILL AULET: Thank you very much. It’s an honor to be here.

ALISON BEARD: So you’ve been focused on innovation-based entrepreneurship for decades. What feels new or different right now compared to previous eras?

BILL AULET: I think if you look at the highest level, entrepreneurship is now accepted in society at a level that it was not nearly when I first started. When I graduated from college, which was back in 1980, they had just invented electricity. But no one thought of entrepreneurship as a serious field of study or a career.

I – God rest my mother’s soul, she was fantastic, but she never understood the difference between entrepreneurship and unemployment. She thought I was unemployed. But today people understand entrepreneurship. It’s accepted by society. And not only is it accepted by society, it is one thing that unites us. No matter whether you’re on the far right, far left, everybody loves entrepreneurship. One of the big differences that’s often overlooked is just the acceptance of entrepreneurship as a serious career path and a positive thing from all perspectives.

When we look at the more micro level, the numbers start to show you the people who want to come out of college, 20% or more of at almost every university, see entrepreneurship as a career path that they want to pursue. Some of them want to do it for money, but what we see is most of them want to do it because they feel like it’s a way to have impact. It’s a way to control their own destiny.

And then even at a more micro level, when you look at what’s going on now, not just the acceptance of entrepreneurship, the barriers to become an entrepreneur have really gone down. Let me give you one example. Just when I wrote the initial version of this book 10 years ago, it took you millions of dollars and at least six months, if not a year, to put an e-commerce company up, to get an e-commerce website going today. You can literally do that in two hours or possibly even one hour or less using Shopify. And that’s just one example of what’s going on with AWS.

All the technology that’s come out has made it much easier to create new products to start companies, which has actually shifted the game from, “You need to make a product to be an entrepreneur,” to “How do we go to market with a product?” Because products are becoming more and more, I don’t want to say commoditized, but it’s easier to produce products. And so of course you have to have a product at the end of the day, you have to get product market fit. That’s table stakes. But the actual game has shifted to be more of a, how do you come up with a go-to-market fit that is a channel market fit? How do you sell the product?

ALISON BEARD: MIT is obviously a hub for science and tech-based startups. So is the path from high-tech research lab to business getting easier also?

BILL AULET: This is a really interesting question because I just presented to the MIT board on this, and they were very interested in how do we accelerate that pipeline of lab to market? And there’s two approaches to that. The first approach is why don’t we make our technical people, our academics… Or researchers, they don’t have to be academics, researchers, more entrepreneurial. How do we teach them the entrepreneurial process? And we do that. We have a program called the Faculty Founders Program where we teach them how to do that. That’s one way to do it.

The other way to do it is to basically flood the zone with high-quality entrepreneurs who aren’t necessarily the inventors. Because entrepreneurship has many misperceptions about it and one of them is it’s an individual sport. It is definitively not by research. Entrepreneurship is not an individual sport, it’s a team sport. And the question is, how do you build a team that can take a technology, a new invention to market? And to do that, you have to have someone who knows how to commercialize it. Those people aren’t necessarily the same as the inventor. And so if you have great inventors and they understand the process to some degree, what we want to do is produce more high-quality entrepreneurs to kind of be around them. And then they will take that technology and that new invention and bring it to market.

I mean, people believe MIT is this faunt of entrepreneurship because of the tremendous research we have here, and we do. We have enormous research, but so does Caltech, so do other places. What really makes a difference is how much of that research can you commercialize? And that’s where the entrepreneurial process comes into play. And even if you look at MIT, less than 6% of the patents that we create are actually commercialized. Let me repeat that. Of all the patents we get, less than 6% of them actually get to the market, and that includes licensing to other companies. So if we could just increase that number somewhat, the pipeline of the billions of dollars that are spent on research here at MIT to get that to market would create a lot more impact.

ALISON BEARD: You note that entrepreneurship is not limited to startups. It can come from within large organizations too, especially ones with deep pockets like an Amazon or Alphabet or Meta. Have you seen any shift in where students and executives think that they’re best positioned to be entrepreneurial?

BILL AULET: I wish I could tell you that there’s more of that, but entrepreneurship is such a complicated thing. You mentioned this at the front. It’s really hard. And still, the best way to teach entrepreneurship is to go to the blank canvas of a startup. And that’s what we do in our programs for the most part. We start off with a blank canvas and then we teach people how to come up with ideas and then how to take those ideas and then figure out what’s a product to get product market fit, channel market fit, and then come up with a scalable business model that’s profitable – economically sustaining.

But if we stay at that level of just seeing entrepreneurship in startups, we as a society are going to be really underperforming against some of the big challenges we have like climate, because startups can only get you so far. They don’t have the strong balance sheets that can think for long periods of time. They don’t have the infrastructure. And when you think about challenges like climate and energy, we need to have big companies involved. And so we really do focus a lot on how do you take those skills. We teach you in startups and apply them in large companies.

We really encourage people to not just be entrepreneurs and startups, but to do it in government, in academic institutions and large organizations and medium-sized organizations and faith-based organizations or nonprofits and even in their personal lives. And I would like to see more of that. But it’s a hard sell because you got to build up the skills first before you go into that. But we’ve had huge successes.

I’ll give one example. Andrea Ippolito went through us – she’s a Cornell undergraduate, came here and was getting her graduate degree and then going for a PhD, and she went through our entrepreneurship programs. She was doing a company called Smart Scheduling to help healthcare organizations do kind of digital innovation to make them more effective, which is huge opportunity there. Well, she decided not to continue on that startup, but learned all the lessons. She then goes back to get her PhD. She’s recruited to go into the Obama White House, and she becomes the chief innovation officer overseeing the Veterans Administration. And she starts setting policies to improve innovation and entrepreneurship in the government for our veterans out there. She didn’t start a company at that point, and she’s literally making the lives of millions of our veterans better.

So I think that’s the journey. She was an entrepreneur the whole time. And the mindset, skillset and way of operating that we taught her, benefited her in all dimensions, not just in being a startup. I sometimes am frustrated, although if we get into it, I’ll talk about metrics of measuring success. And it’s too often measured and how many startups, how much revenue do they do, how much money did they raise – whereas how do you measure the impact that Andrea Ippolito had in those various jobs?

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. I mean the criticism of entrepreneurs in general and particularly tech startups for a while has been that they’re more focused on sort of easing these small pain points for pretty well-off customers. Like I’m thinking Uber, DoorDash, Tinder even, then tackling more difficult and important and challenging problems. Is that changing?

BILL AULET: Well, I can’t say for universal, but if you look in my new book, we very much believe, and this is something I work with Tom Byers of Stanford and Jon Fjeld on is entrepreneurship as an ethical activity. If you’re in it for profit-making, you’re not going to last.

And so the first thing that we start with, excuse me, is you must have a raison d’etre. That’s French for reason for existence. And if you say that it’s to make money, we reject that because no company is just all about profits and going to last.

And then just to go to the data here, we did a 10-year longitudinal study of our students coming out of our Delta V program, our capstone program. There’s this perception that people are doing dating apps and silly things. Well, our data showed, and this was an independent study by Daniela Ruiz Massieu of ITAM University, a tenured year professor, head of their entrepreneurship down there. And she came in and looked at it. And in the 10-year study looking at almost 200 entrepreneurs, she found that 89% of the businesses they were starting 89, 8-9, were directly aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

That makes me very, very proud. And that goes directly to what you’re talking about. We believe entrepreneurship is an incredible force for good in society. And if you understand that and you build your companies based on mission, mission-driven as opposed to money-driven, they will be more successful. And going to the data on how successful they are, her study shows 69% of them are still in business five years later.

ALISON BEARD: Those statistics definitely give me hope. But I would say that still the primary successful examples of entrepreneurs and companies might cloak their businesses in laudable goals like connecting the world for Facebook or giving us information like Google, when in practice what they seem to be doing is collecting and selling our data, addicting us to their platforms, and they’re still making piles of money. So how do you reconcile that with your vision of successful entrepreneurship always being ethical?

BILL AULET: That’s a really good point. I think I’m a system dynamics person which says the incentives of the system will dictate how people behave in it, and I find those very troubling. I find by the way, the examples of using social network or the Steve Jobs movies as that’s entrepreneurship, I find those to be very unhelpful. They’re misleading. They don’t get into what the real data shows you.

So how do I reconcile those? All I can tell you is that our companies are like Biobot Analytics. Biobot Analytics is started by two of our students here. One was Mariana Matus who was a PhD here at MIT from Mexico, and she wanted to start a company to make the world a better place and make cities more livable. And she partnered with Newsha Ghaeli who was Persian, that’s Iranian by way – out of Canada. They were very into how do we create safer cities.

They looked at this and built a dashboard that looked at wastewater, epidemiology wastewater, that is what we flush out the toilet and see what diseases do we have, what other things are going on in the city. So basically we could set it up in Boston and we could know. In Jamaica Plain, everything seems healthy, but if you look at West Cambridge, there seems to be some fentanyl use there or there seems to be a Zika virus outbreak. When they were going through our program, we actually had a discussion about what they were doing, and they were very into this. And then they met with one of the top venture capitalists in the world. And the top venture, this person said, enormously successful, sat down and said, “You’re not going to make a lot of money doing this. You should pivot to help pharmaceutical companies.”

And we walked out of the meeting. I said, well, “He’s very accomplished. What do you want to do? If that’s not what you want to do, we fully support you.” They said, “That’s not what we want to do. We want to make cities safer.” They stuck to there what they were doing. And Biobot Analytics has become extremely successful. They became the gold standard during Covid for measuring whether Covid is in a place weeks before you could with testing. And they’re doing tens of millions of dollars. They’re on a path to IPO.

ALISON BEARD: Well, that’s a fabulous example. What about the criticism that startup founders are often so laser-focused on bringing their idea, maybe one that will have good social impact to fruition, that they don’t think about the potential risks or negative externalities or broader consequences I’m thinking about the concerns that people have about OpenAI, for example. I think Sam Altman is sort of heralded as a new kind of entrepreneur, a new generation of entrepreneurs, but people are now also worried that he’s sort of stepping away from his initial altruistic vision for the company.

BILL AULET: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a real leadership question that you’re going to have. At the end of the day, all these companies come down to the talent that they can draw. I think if you have unethical activities, people today are cognizant of that. They’re not just going to work for companies they feel are unethical. And that’s my hope. I don’t have data to back that up to the level that I would like, but that’s my sincere belief, Alison.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And perhaps having gone through the era of social media in particular, Facebook, Instagram, X, et cetera, and all the sort of unexpected problems, whether it’s teenage girl eating disorders to election interference, there’s perhaps more scrutiny now on startups to make sure, “Are you thinking about all the potential things that could go wrong as you’re building your business plan?”

BILL AULET: I would hope so. But again, we have a capitalist system that rewards you for making money and getting customers and the like. I think there’s definitely a role for government and regulation in that regard. I differ from some of my entrepreneurial libertarian colleagues in that regard. I think we do need that. I’m not here to tell you everything, sunshine, rainbows and unicorns jumping around, that is a challenge going forward. And that’s why unfettered capitalism I just don’t think is the right answer.

ALISON BEARD: Okay, so let’s dig into the updated book, which as I said, sets out 24 steps to getting a startup off the ground, from market segmentation to developing a product plan. And we obviously can’t get to all of the steps, but what, if anything, did you change from the 1st edition to this one?

BILL AULET: Oh my God, the 1st edition, just to put a little quick historical perspective on this, when I started teaching, I think it was 17 years ago, I started looking for that book that captured what I had learned being an entrepreneur for decades, we’re going from three startups and failing in my first one and getting better at the second one to having success in the third one to say, “Who’s captured that knowledge?” And all I found were books that were point things. You’d find Lean Startup, you’d find a Blue Ocean Strategy, you’d find Crossing the Chasm, these are all great books, but they were all individual tools.

And so for my class, I built a reader and I tried not to invent new stuff. I tried to take what I know already worked and just kind of stitch it together. And that was the genesis of this reader, which then it became quite popular- and people said, “Hey, this is really great. How can I get a copy of it?” And Wiley said, “Hey, we’d like to publish this.” And so the first version was minimum viable product.

And then once it got out there, I’ll never forget a colleague of mine here at MIT, Professor Charlie Fine, said, “Now you’re really going to learn about entrepreneurship.” And I said, “What do you mean? I put everything I know into that book.” He said, “Oh no, now you’re really going to learn because everyone’s going to come and tell you everything they know and they’re going to ask you questions and you’re going to become kind of the focal point of entrepreneurship discussion.” And dang it, Charlie was right. That’s what happened. Everybody started talking to me about that.

We literally got thousands of more examples as to how to do that. And over the past 10 years, we’ve learned so much. I’ve taken that minimum viable product and updated it to a new dramatically expanded and updated version with some of the new things we were talking about. And my first rewrite of it was 700 pages, which was completely unacceptable because the key to the book is, A, that it’s open source. We try to build a and take everything that works so that Simon Sinek, Jeffrey Moore, Stefan Thomke, Michael Porter – whoever it is, we’re pulling it in and we’re saying, “This is your toolbox that you need to do.” But that toolbox has to be small enough and accessible enough to be able to be used by an entrepreneur who has finite time and resources. In the end, we got it down to 400 pages. But it’s also expanded to be able to talk about how do you use AI, the change in the past 10 years between products becoming commoditized and the emphasis now is on go-to market, how do you develop go to market.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And I think that efficiency and practicality point is key, particularly for people who are considering becoming intrapreneurs. So it’s not like they’re trying to find a start-up and devoting all their time to it. It’s their full time job. But people who might want to start something new within an organization, how do you think about doing that in a way that is relatively easy, still takes thought and time, but you can work through a process before you present it to the higher ups?

BILL AULET: That’s exactly right., we’ve got to say, “Here’s the simplification of it and here’s where you get started and here are the steps you go through. While we’re giving you a sequential one, you have to understand it’s not linear. You’re going to have to do a lot of cycling, but at least you know what you’re supposed to be going.” Gives you some GPS, some templates and things to help you. But it’s a never-ending process.

The day you think that you’re done with entrepreneurship… I think Bob Dylan said it best, “He who is not being born is busy dying.” You have to continually be running the entrepreneurial process and understanding who your customer is, what you can do for your customer, how they acquire the product, how you make money, how do you scale the business. All these things are a never-ending cycle.

ALISON BEARD: How are your students and executives using new technology, like I’m thinking social media and gen AI, to make this process easier or faster?

BILL AULET: Well, we actually have a terrifically interesting tool right now. We’re internally calling it Tim the Beaver, your friendly AI entrepreneurship assistant. What it does is it’s a modified version of ChatGPT-4 Plus, which you could also use Gemini or whatever we want, but it takes the structure that we have in disciplined entrepreneurship and it trains that to ask the questions and fill in templates to say, “What’s your idea? Here’s your potential customers, which ones do you like? Which ones do you not like? What would be a beachhead market?” And then it will step you through, “Here’s your potential customers. Oh, by the way, here’s how you can reduce your cost to customer acquisition.”

And so using things, as you mentioned, like… I mean at the end of the day, it comes down to getting customers, getting customers to profit. As we say, the first commandment of entrepreneurship is the single necessary and sufficient condition for a business is a paying customer. So you have to focus on getting paying customers that are in a less expensive way, in a more profitable way, and keeping them and making them happy, and then scaling the business.

So all the things you mentioned fit into this framework, like, do you use social media to acquire customers? Then that’s reducing cost of customer acquisition. Or do you use them to increase your lifetime value? That’s a different part of the equation. But do you use it to interface with them to find out their needs and wants and opportunities? this tool, we see and we’re already using it, it can dramatically shrink the entrepreneurial process of creating a new venture by as much as 90% in parts of it.

You still have to do primary market research, but a lot of the secondary market research you have to do, we can just do that in 15 minutes.

The best knowledge is not going to come from one institution, from one zip code. If we’re getting serious about pushing the field of entrepreneurship and raising the bar for it, we need to build a collaborative knowledge base that’s shared amongst all people. You’ve got to have a common body of knowledge and things that are agreed on, and those things should be agreed on based on evidence, not storytelling or who debates the best.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And how are you making sure that your style of disciplined entrepreneurship is spreading throughout the world, not just in Cambridge, not just in the United States?

BILL AULET: We’re not a for-profit. We have a terrible business model, Alison. It’s called, we create knowledge and give it away to the rest of the world to create positive impact. And so everything we do is open-sourced. And we need to take the long view here. And we have that, if you call it business model, to think long-term. And that’s what we should do. That is our role in society, and we should not back down from that at all.

ALISON BEARD: Once would-be startup founders have gone through all of your steps, there is still the problem of financing and finding investors. So how do you advise your students and executives you work with to go about that right now?

BILL AULET: Well, the first thing is there’s lack of confidence and knowledge about finance. I have a free book now called Finance for Entrepreneurs. We just have to break down that and demystify finance in a lot of ways first.

And then secondly, and I tell my students this all the time, and some listen and some don’t, is, “You want to get funding? Listen to what I have to say. The best way to get funding is to build a great company. The slowest way to get funding is to go try to play a game where you’re convincing the VCs you have what they want. Just go out and build a great business and they will find you. And by the way, there’s a great way to get funding. It’s called build a product that customers want and get them to pay you for it. And then guess what? You have money. And by the way, once you get that money, that’s validation that will help you raise it from other people.”

ALISON BEARD: Terrific, Bill. Well, thank you so much for joining me and definitely giving me hope that there are entrepreneurs out there who are going to make the world a better place.

BILL AULET: Thank you very much for having me on IdeaCast , and I look forward to any feedback.

ALISON BEARD: That’s Bill Aulet, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the newly updated and expanded Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup. His colleague Paul Cheek, recently released the follow-up, Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics.

And we have more episodes and more podcasts to help you manage your team, your organization, and your career, find them at HBR.org/podcasts or search HBR in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Thanks to our team, senior producer Mary Dooe, associate producer Hannah Bates, audio product manager Ian Fox, and senior production specialist Rob Eckhardt. And thanks to you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast . We’ll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I’m Alison Beard.

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Press Releases

Intel outlines financial framework for foundry business, sets path to margin expansion.

New financial reporting structure reflects Intel’s transition to a foundry operating model to drive greater transparency, cost savings and growth.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Intel Corporation today outlined a new financial reporting structure that is aligned with the company’s previously announced foundry operating model for 2024 and beyond. This new structure is designed to drive increased cost discipline and higher returns by providing greater transparency, accountability and incentives across the business.

To support the new structure, Intel provided recast operating segment financial results for the years 2023, 2022 and 2021. The company also shared a targeted path toward long-term growth and profitability of Intel Foundry, as well as clear goals for driving financial performance improvement and shareholder value creation.

“Intel’s differentiated position as both a world-class semiconductor manufacturer and a fabless technology leader creates significant opportunities to drive long-term sustainable growth across these two complementary businesses,” said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. “Implementing this new model marks a key achievement in our IDM 2.0 transformation as we hone our execution engine, stand up the industry’s first and only systems foundry with geographically diverse leading-edge manufacturing capacity, and advance our mission to bring AI Everywhere.”

The new operating model establishes a foundry relationship between Intel Foundry, the company’s manufacturing organization, and Intel Products, comprised of the company’s product business units. Launched at its inaugural Direct Connect event in February, Intel Foundry is the world’s first systems foundry for the AI era, offering full-stack optimization from the factory network to software.

The combination of Intel’s world-class foundry and product capabilities will leverage a more resilient, sustainable and secure source of supply while delivering cutting-edge solutions to customers through continuous technology improvements, reference designs and new standards.

New Reporting Structure

Beginning with the first quarter 2024, the company will present segment results aligned to the following operating segments: Client Computing Group (CCG); Data Center and AI (DCAI); Network and Edge (NEX); Intel Foundry; Altera, an Intel Company (formerly Intel’s Programmable Solutions Group); Mobileye; and Other. CCG, DCAI and NEX will collectively be referred to as Intel Products; Altera, Mobileye and Other will collectively be referred to as All Other.

Intel Foundry is a newly established operating segment that includes foundry technology development, foundry manufacturing and supply chain, and foundry services (formerly IFS). Under this new structure, Intel Foundry will recognize revenues generated from both external foundry customers and Intel Products, as well as technology development and product manufacturing costs historically allocated to Intel Products. The new Altera operating segment, which was previously reported under DCAI, follows its announced separation into a standalone business.

The Form 8-K containing recast operating segment results for the years 2023, 2022 and 2021 aligned with the foundry operating model was furnished with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and posted on the company’s Investor Relations website.

Dave Zinsner, Intel chief financial officer, said, “This model is designed to unlock significant cost savings, operational efficiencies and asset value. As it begins to take hold, we expect to accelerate on our path toward achieving our ambition of 60% non-GAAP gross margins and 40% non-GAAP operating margins in 2030. Ultimately, improved cost competitiveness will help us deliver process technology, product and foundry leadership while driving significant financial upside for Intel and our owners.”

Clear Path to Value Unlock and Margin Expansion

The transition to the new operating model is expected to enable Intel Foundry to achieve profitable growth and unlock unrealized value across Intel’s approximately $100 billion in capital assets. It will also create significant efficiency and cost savings opportunities across both Intel Foundry and Intel Products.

• Intel Foundry: Operating margin improvement is expected through shifting volume mix to leading-edge extreme ultraviolet (EUV) nodes as the company achieves process parity and leadership. Intel Foundry expects to drive further operating margin expansion by manufacturing a larger percentage of Intel’s products, growing its high-margin advanced packaging business, continuing to expand its external foundry business, and further focusing on capital utilization, cost efficiency and growing scale. Intel Foundry’s operating losses are expected to peak in 2024 as Intel completes its five-nodes-in-four-years journey, and the company is driving for Intel Foundry to achieve break-even operating margins midway between now and the end of 2030, when it targets 40% non-GAAP gross margins and 30% non-GAAP operating margins. Intel Foundry currently has an expected lifetime deal value with external customers of more than $15 billion and remains focused on its goal of becoming the world’s second-largest foundry by 2030.
• Intel Products: Intel Products already exhibits healthy operating margins today, which are expected to improve as the product operating segments benefit from the new operating model. In this model, product operating segments will have increased visibility into and be accountable for the financial drivers for their businesses. Instead of recognizing manufacturing costs that were previously allocated to the product operating segments, they will be charged a market-based price by Intel Foundry. Continued operating margin improvement is expected as the product segments build on their execution momentum with leadership products and improved pricing, drive cost optimizations in design and roadmap decisions, and realize improved costs in package, assembly and test. Intel Products targets 60% non-GAAP gross margin and 40% non-GAAP operating margin by the end of 2030.

Appointment of Intel Foundry CFO

As part of today’s news, Intel also announced the appointment of Lorenzo Flores as chief financial officer of Intel Foundry, effective April 8, 2024. Flores possesses nearly 30 years of financial experience in semiconductors and technology, including most recently as the chief financial officer of Xilinx. This complements the earlier appointment of Mark Henninger as the chief financial officer of Intel Products. Both will report to Zinsner.

Investor Webinar

• Intel will host an investor webinar at 1:30 p.m. PDT today to present the vision and financial framework for the Intel Foundry business, including the recast financials and new segment reporting structure aligned with the foundry operating model. The webcast and corresponding presentation slides can be accessed on Intel's Investor Relations website at intc.com .
• An infographic that outlines the new financial reporting structure can be found on the Intel Newsroom .

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This press release contains forward-looking references to the achievement of certain non-GAAP financial results, including non-GAAP gross margins and non-GAAP operating margins. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a substitute for, or superior to, financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. A full reconciliation of these targets cannot be provided without unreasonable efforts as we are unable to provide the reconciling adjustments over the forward-looking period. For a full explanation of these non-GAAP financial measures, see Intel’s earnings release for the fourth-quarter and full-year 2023, released on January 25, 2024, available on intc.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements, including with respect to:

• our business plans and strategy and anticipated benefits therefrom, including with respect to our IDM 2.0 strategy, the transition to an internal foundry model, updates to our reporting structure, and our AI strategy;
• projections of our future financial performance, including future profitability, gross margin improvements, operating margin improvements, cost savings, and operational efficiencies;
• future products, services, and technologies and expectations regarding product and process leadership;
• plans and goals related to Intel's foundry business, including with respect to anticipated customers and future business with customers, future manufacturing capacity, service technology and IP offerings, and ecosystem support;
• expected completion and impacts of restructuring activities and cost-saving or efficiency initiatives;
• our anticipated growth, future market share, and trends in our businesses and operations;
• projected market and technology trends, such as AI; and
• other characterizations of future events or circumstances.

Such statements involve many risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied, including those associated with:

• the high level of competition and rapid technological change in our industry;
• the significant long-term and inherently risky investments we are making in R&D and manufacturing facilities that may not realize a favorable return;
• the complexities and uncertainties in developing and implementing new semiconductor products and manufacturing process technologies;
• our ability to time and scale our capital investments appropriately and successfully secure favorable alternative financing arrangements and government grants;
• implementing new business strategies and investing in new businesses and technologies;
• changes in demand for our products;
• macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical tensions and conflicts, including geopolitical and trade tensions between the US and China, the impacts of Russia's war on Ukraine, tensions and conflict affecting Israel, and rising tensions between mainland China and Taiwan;
• the evolving market for products with AI capabilities;
• our complex global supply chain, including from disruptions, delays, trade tensions and conflicts, or shortages;
• product defects, errata and other product issues, particularly as we develop next-generation products and implement next-generation manufacturing process technologies;
• potential security vulnerabilities in our products;
• increasing and evolving cybersecurity threats and privacy risks;
• IP risks including related litigation and regulatory proceedings;
• the need to attract, retain, and motivate key talent;
• strategic transactions and investments;
• sales-related risks, including customer concentration and the use of distributors and other third parties;
• our significantly reduced return of capital in recent years;
• our debt obligations and our ability to access sources of capital;
• complex and evolving laws and regulations across many jurisdictions;
• fluctuations in currency exchange rates;
• changes in our effective tax rate;
• catastrophic events;
• environmental, health, safety, and product regulations;
• our initiatives and new legal requirements with respect to corporate responsibility matters; and
• other risks and uncertainties described in this release, our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

All information in this release reflects management's expectations as of the date of this release, unless an earlier date is specified. We do not undertake, and expressly disclaim any duty, to update such statements, whether as a result of new information, new developments, or otherwise, except to the extent that disclosure may be required by law.

About Intel

Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is an industry leader, creating world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches lives. Inspired by Moore’s Law, we continuously work to advance the design and manufacturing of semiconductors to help address our customers’ greatest challenges. By embedding intelligence in the cloud, network, edge and every kind of computing device, we unleash the potential of data to transform business and society for the better. To learn more about Intel’s innovations, go to newsroom.intel.com and intel.com .

© Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo and other Intel marks are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240402570432/en/

Kylie Altman Investor Relations 1-916-356-0320 [email protected]

Sophie Won Media Relations 1-408-653-0475 [email protected]

Source: Intel Corporation

Released Apr 2, 2024 • 4:05 PM EDT

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A Roadmap for Responsible Business Conduct

Three years ago, a Dalit woman was murdered by her supervisor at a garment factory in India. Her co-workers did not wait for the company to respond. They organized collectively and engaged major global fashion companies, developing an enforceable agreement between the buying companies, the factories and their trade union to identify, remedy and prevent gender-based violence and harassment in their workplaces.

Known as the Dindigul agreement , the initiative established independent monitoring entities and trained female shop floor monitors with special retaliation protections to take immediate action on cases of gender-based violence and harassment. The agreement ensured that there were trusted and reliable grievance mechanisms in place. It also held companies accountable to resolving issues and providing workers access to remedy.

By 2026, companies are projected to spend over $27 billion a year on voluntary social audits to report on labor abuses in their supply chains. Yet, no audit would have stopped the tragedy in India. And in 2013, the Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Bangladesh , killing over 1,100 workers – days after an audit found no problems in the building. Voluntary third-party audits have all too often shown their limitations.

We believe businesses can and must do better. That’s why we’ve released the Responsible Business Conduct and Labor Rights InfoHub , a one-stop shop for information, guidance and tools from the U.S. government and international organizations to support the private sector in integrating labor rights and responsible business practices in their operations and across their global supply chains.

This comes as part of the U.S. government’s second National Action Plan on Responsible Business Conduct, founded on the Biden-Harris administration’s bedrock belief that businesses can have success while doing good, and that governments should create the conditions for responsible business conduct to take place.

The InfoHub provides companies with the knowledge and tools they need to comply with federal statutes, agency rules and trade provisions around responsible business and labor rights. It also makes government reports and advisories easily accessible, so businesses can stay up to date on emerging risks in priority sectors.

The site complements existing due diligence tools the Bureau of International Labor Affairs has created, such as Comply Chain and our List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor . The InfoHub also builds upon ILAB’s commitment to amplifying worker voice as a critical component of worker-centered due diligence.

We urge all stakeholders — from civil society to the C-suite — to use these resources, tools and legal standards to engage in meaningful action, strengthen their due diligence and ensure workers in their supply chains can exercise their internationally recognized rights without fear of retaliation.

We are entering a new era of corporate compliance, one where binding commitments to support worker voice, as we see in the Dindigul agreement, emerge as powerful and viable tools. The businesses at the top of global supply chains have the power to make these agreements widespread and effective and to ensure that workers are at the center of these new processes and institutions. This requires not just standing up new processes to map and track impacts within supply chains, but on concrete, positive outcomes for workers. It requires not just setting up hotlines, apps or suggestion boxes for workers but respecting their rights to organize and bargain collectively.

Through the Responsible Business Conduct and Labor Rights InfoHub and other resources, the U.S. Department of Labor is providing companies with the tools to chart a path forward on meaningful due diligence and bolster the rights and protections of all workers.

Thea Lee is the deputy undersecretary for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor. Follow ILAB on X/Twitter at @ILAB_DOL and on LinkedIn .

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Earthquake maps show where seismic activity shook the Northeast today

By Lucia Suarez Sang

Updated on: April 5, 2024 / 7:51 PM EDT / CBS News

Residents across the Northeast were rattled by a  4.8 magnitude earthquake that shook  the densely populated New York City metropolitan area and much of the surrounding region on Friday morning. The U.S. Geological Survey was quick to release maps showing the spot where the quake was centered, in New Jersey, and the area where it was felt.

The USGS reported the quake occurred about 7 miles north of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey. It indicated that the quake might have been felt by more than 42 million people. There were several aftershocks later in the day, including one with a magnitude of 4.0.

People in Baltimore , Philadelphia , New Jersey, Connecticut, Boston and other areas of the Northeast reported shaking. Tremors lasting for several seconds were felt over 200 miles away near the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border.

The map below shows the seismic intensity of the earthquake. The map, which is mostly a lighter shade of blue, shows that the intensity was light to weak, depending on the distance from the epicenter. 

Another map released by the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre on X, formerly Twitter, highlights the eyewitness reports of shaking and possible damage levels during the seismic event. 

#Earthquake 18 mi W of #Plainfield (New Jersey) 23 min ago (local time 10:23:20). Updated map - Colored dots represent local shaking & damage level reported by eyewitnesses. Share your experience via: 📱 https://t.co/IbUfG7TFOL 🌐 https://t.co/wErQf69jIn pic.twitter.com/jBjVw1ngAD — EMSC (@LastQuake) April 5, 2024

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have been briefed on the quake. 

"We're taking this extremely seriously and here's why: There's always the possibility of aftershocks. We have not felt a magnitude of this earthquake since about 2011," Hochul said. 

People across the region were startled by the rumbling of the quake. One New York City resident told CBS New York's Elijah Westbrook, "I was laying in my bed, and my whole apartment building started shaking. I started freaking out," 

It's not the first time the East Coast and New York City have been hit by an earthquake. 

A 5.0 quake was measured in New York City in 1884. 

The shaking stirred memories of the Aug. 23, 2011, earthquake that jolted tens of millions of people from Georgia to Canada. Registering magnitude 5.8, it was the strongest quake to hit the East Coast since World War II. The epicenter was in Virginia.

That earthquake left cracks in the Washington Monument, spurred the evacuation of the White House and Capitol and rattled New Yorkers three weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

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