Atlassian’s Jira is a versatile project management tool that’s widely used in software development. One of the tool’s core features is its ability to support long-term project planning through its roadmap functionality.
Roadmaps are available in Jira Software Standard (through a feature known as Jira Roadmaps) and in a superior form called Advanced Roadmaps in Jira Premium. Applied effectively, Jira roadmaps can provide clearer visibility into a project and improve collaboration opportunities and team alignment.
What is a Jira roadmap?
A Jira roadmap is a visual representation of a project’s planned work over time. The basic level, known as Jira Roadmaps, is freely accessible to all users. It’s designed to help individual teams manage a project with a basic timeline and dependencies.
Meanwhile, Advanced Roadmaps is an improved feature available only to Jira Software Premium members. It offers more advanced tools, including features that support project management across multiple teams.
Jira roadmaps help users see the bigger picture of complex projects. When used appropriately, they can ensure teams can develop and release products on time.
Basic vs. advanced roadmaps: What’s the difference?
Jira Roadmaps and Advanced Roadmaps have a number of key differences:
- Team sizes. Advanced Roadmaps offers much more functionality for cross-project releases and management across multiple teams.
- Timeline management. Jira Roadmaps offers basic timelines, whereas Advanced Roadmaps lets users go more granular.
- Dependencies. Advanced Roadmaps provides full support for managing different dependencies, a significant upgrade from the basic Jira Roadmaps.
- Hierarchies. Advanced Roadmaps lets you create custom hierarchies beyond the epic level, whilst the standard Jira Roadmaps is more limited and can’t be customized as extensively.
Setting up roadmaps in Jira
To benefit from Jira’s roadmapping features, you’ll first need to set them up. Follow the step-by-step guidance below to set up your first roadmap.
Enabling roadmaps in a Jira project
You need to have a project set up already before you can create a roadmap. The roadmap settings will be slightly different depending on whether you’re in a company-managed or team-managed project. If you’re in a company-managed project follow these steps:
- Select Board Settings within the settings menu
- Navigate to the Roadmap section
- Toggle Jira’s roadmap feature on
From this page, you’ll also be able to toggle certain other roadmap features on, like to add child issues scheduling.
If you’re in a team-managed project, follow these steps:
- Select Project Settings from the sidebar
- Navigate to the Features tab
- Toggle the roadmap option on
Creating your first roadmap
Once enabled, you’ll be able to create your first roadmap in Jira by following these steps:
- Select your roadmap from the sidebar. You should then see a timeline view with all of your project’s epics and dependencies.
- Click on an epic to schedule. Drag and drop this block shape to schedule the period length of a task.
- Hover beneath this block to create a dependency. Connect the dependency line to another block to create a dependency between tasks.
- Make sure you set your epics and key project phases out on your roadmap timeline early on. Make it clear which of these are milestones so you can keep track of key delivery dates.
Customizing your roadmap view
The following is a step-by-step example overview of some of the customization and project planning visualizations you can make in Jira roadmaps.
- Determine the ideal timeline for your project in your view settings. You can change your timeline so it views a quarterly, monthly, or weekly period.
- Use filters to filter information based on data like issue type. You can find filters at the top of the table with several dropdowns.
- Manage start and due dates for your epics and tasks by resizing task blocks on the roadmap.
- To start defining custom fields in Advanced Roadmaps, navigate to settings, then configure, then custom fields.
Features of Jira roadmaps
Jira’s roadmap features make it an effective tool for project plans and tracking. These represent some of its main functions and how they can be used to better manage projects.
Timeline visualization
The main roadmap visualization in Jira is a timeline view. This view connects with your project’s epics and tasks to show a clear timeline of your entire project.
The timeline visualization uses color-coded bars and filters to help teams monitor due dates, as well as to review how tasks overlap.
Dependencies and blockers
Tracking dependencies is a fundamental part of software development. Using Jira roadmaps, you can create and track dependencies between all of your scheduled tasks.
By maintaining and managing these many dependencies, teams can clear their backlog, avoid bottlenecks and keep release dates on track.
Roll-up progress tracking
Jira roadmaps function on a hierarchy priorities system, from tasks and stories all the way up to initiatives and the highest epic level. Advanced Roadmaps even allows you to create a new issue type and custom levels beyond epic.
Through roadmaps, you can track how the progress on your individual tasks, sometimes called child issues, rolls up into higher-level items. This can offer you an overview of how the overall project is progressing.
Team and resource allocation
Jira’s Advanced Roadmaps is designed for collaboration across multiple teams. You can allocate resources and manage workloads across several teams and individuals through the roadmap view.
In Advanced Roadmaps, you can also access a unique capacity view, which shows in detail each team’s workload and how close this is to their team capacity. By combining this view with other capacity planning tools, you can balance resources across multiple teams and projects.
Multiple timeline views
In addition to the aforementioned capacity view, Advanced Roadmaps has several other views including:
- Teams View: The teams view shows you a summary of a project’s teams, so you can monitor their work.
- Release View: This view allows you to focus on your milestones or upcoming releases.
- Portfolio View: This allows you to take a bigger picture view across all epic items, several teams or projects.
Within Advanced Roadmaps, you can also modify views in your view settings. This means they can be customized to suit your project’s needs.
Scenario planning (Advanced Roadmaps)
With Advanced Roadmaps you can also create different “what-if” scenarios for your projects. This allows you to forecast how a project is likely to progress, and then communicate that to team leaders and external stakeholders.
You can create several different “what-if” scenarios within an Advanced Roadmap account. This ensures you won’t be impacting your main project timeline or live data when experimenting, and means you can easily export them to share in meetings.
How to manage long-term projects with Jira roadmaps
Jira’s roadmap functionality is ideal for managing long-term projects that are reliant on several different teams and individuals. By following this guidance you can work to keep each member of your team effectively aligned with your roadmap.
Aligning teams and stakeholders
Make sure you’re sharing your timeline view with decision-makers and stakeholders, as well as software developers.
One of the main benefits of Jira software and its roadmap view is the ability to provide in detail a unified view of a project’s progress. Regularly export this visualization, and refer to it during key business meetings to encourage clearer communication amongst your leadership team.
Breaking down large initiatives into epics and tasks
Since it works on a system of hierarchies, Jira plans can be useful for decomposing larger tasks. Split your epic data into more manageable tasks, and then assign these across your team.
Set dependencies on key tasks, and define a clear goal for each. By breaking your project down to this granular level, the entire project should become easier to visualize, and your teams will find it easier to collaborate.
Milestones and key delivery dates
To track a clear due date for your overall project, make sure you’re setting milestones. Milestones can be set by adding an epic, and then customizing its data.
Along with setting your milestones, you should conduct a milestone review of all of your completed issues and end dates regularly. This will allow you to adjust your overall project timeline and the urgency of specific tasks.
Managing dependencies across teams
It isn’t enough to simply set dependencies. Every single team you’re managing needs clear instructions for how to prioritize tasks, and the importance of each dependency.
By using Advanced Roadmaps, you can monitor these cross-team dependencies and visualize them on your chosen view. Combine these visualizations with direct communication across teams, so everyone knows when they should complete each of their tasks.
Best practices for using Jira roadmaps effectively
Effectively using a roadmap often involves relying on a set of best practices. This guidance outlines some of the main priorities you should consider if you’re looking to manage your projects through Jira.
Regular updates and progress tracking
Roadmap tracking is an evolving process. Set a regular weekly or bi-weekly date where you’ll review your roadmap and keep everything up to date.
In addition to modifying tasks, consider where you can make adjustments based on a team’s capacity, performance, or any external changes.
Keeping roadmaps flexible
Whilst not always the case—particularly if you have a strict deadline to meet—flexibility can be a notable benefit for an effective roadmap. As one example, look at areas where certain epics need more time, and tweak your map dependencies accordingly.
Advanced Roadmaps’ scenario planning tools can be extremely valuable for flexibility. Experiment with how a project could go, and consider pivoting based on your current team capacity.
Integrating Jira roadmaps with agile methodologies
As Jira is mainly a solution for software development, its roadmaps integrate well with agile methodologies.
In an ideal world, you should be able to balance the reliability of long-term planning with the flexibility provided by agile working. Consider incorporating sprints into your tasks and stories, and monitor how these impact your project goals.
Communicating roadmap updates with stakeholders
By toggling your filters and view settings, you can create a simplified visualization of a complicated development project. This can be extremely valuable as a communication tool for non-technical people like external stakeholders.
If you have Advanced Roadmaps, create a custom view that’s designed to highlight the most valuable information for your stakeholders. Then, export this regularly so they’re always in the loop.
Jira roadmaps for remote and distributed teams
Jira roadmaps are ideal for remote teams, as they offer a centralized project plan regardless of a team’s location. The below features are particularly useful if you’re using Jira across several distributed teams.
Real-time collaboration features
Users have the ability to add comments, tag tasks and receive notifications through Jira directly.
These actions can be performed in real-time, meaning they’re highly effective for teams across different time zones. Make regular use of these to keep maintain communication across your remote teams.
Sharing roadmaps across time zones
Roadmaps can be exported as PDFs, a CSV file or shared through other formats like a direct link.
This means you can easily send a saved version of the current timeline across regions. This is vital if you need to communicate progress with team members who don’t have direct access to Jira.
Integrating Jira roadmaps with other tools
Another notable feature of Jira roadmaps is their ability to integrate and connect with other tools. These integrations all enhance Jira’s functionality and often enable superior project planning.
Jira roadmaps and Confluence
By creating a link to your roadmaps with any Confluence page, you can streamline the process of reporting on your roadmap.
Jira roadmaps can either be linked or embedded directly into your Confluence page. This offers a smoother way of sharing your project’s status across teams.
Jira roadmaps and CI/CD tools
Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) tools like Jenkins or Bitbucket can also be integrated with your Jira roadmap.
Applying these integrations means your team can track development progress in real-time.
Third-party integrations
Other third-party software that can integrate with Jira roadmaps include communication tools like Slack, video call software like Microsoft Teams, and other project management tools like Trello. You can also export your roadmap as a CSV file.
These integrations mean Jira can link and interact with other solutions used across your business. When integrated, you can further improve communication across different platforms, and keep everyone informed on the status of your project.
Common challenges and solutions when using Jira roadmaps
Roadmapping can come with its own unique set of challenges. These are some practical solutions to some of the most common challenges posed by Jira.
Managing complex dependencies
Large, multi-team roadmaps come with multiple elements and a sometimes overwhelming number of dependencies.
To keep track of every link, enable some of the features offered by Advanced Roadmaps, like its custom filters and clearer dependency visualization.
Keeping roadmaps up-to-date
Since software development can evolve quickly, it can be a challenge to keep your Jira updated alongside the real-time progress of your dev team.
To overcome this, implement automated workflows and encourage individuals to monitor their own tasks through Jira. You can also host regular review meetings to keep an eye on the status of your roadmap.
Overcomplicating the roadmap view
Since Jira offers so many complex features, it’s possible to overcomplicate your timeline view. This can end up overwhelming your teams by making their priorities and tasks unclear.
Make use of filters, so teams only ever see the information that’s relevant to them. Try to keep your timelines as simple as possible, so your team can focus on completing their tasks.
Conclusion
Even if you’re using the standard version, Jira Roadmaps can be a valuable tool for the long-term success of your development projects. But if you’re tracking progress across multiple teams and dependencies, or in need of capacity management, Advanced Roadmaps can be a more reliable solution. Explore Jira’s roadmap features for yourself, and start optimizing how you manage your projects.
FAQs
What is the difference between basic roadmaps and advanced roadmaps in Jira?
Advanced Roadmaps offers more hierarchies, customization options and cross-team collaboration tools when compared with the basic version.
How do I enable roadmaps in Jira?
To enable roadmaps in a company-managed project, select Board Settings. If you’re in a team-managed project, select Project Settings.
Can I use Jira roadmaps for agile project management?
Yes, Jira roadmaps integrate effectively with several agile methodologies like, for example, Scrum and Kanban.
How do dependencies work in Jira roadmaps?
You can manage dependencies in Jira roadmaps by dragging connections between each of your tasks.
Is Jira roadmaps available in Jira free version?
Yes, roadmaps are available in the free version of Jira. But for more complicated planning, you need to pay for the Advanced Roadmaps feature.
Can Jira roadmaps handle cross-project planning?
Advanced Roadmaps can effectively handle cross project releases. You can map dependencies across several teams, and access tools like capacity management to handle team capacity and better meet the needs of your customer insights.
How do I share a Jira roadmap with stakeholders?
If they don’t have Jira access, you can export your roadmap as a PDF and share it with them directly.
