As you learned in the previous video, roadmaps are an important part of any long-running project. In this reading, we will summarize the benefits of and best practices for developing a product roadmap, as well as highlight some of the pitfalls you might encounter.  You may see different types of roadmaps as you continue your project management career. Each team or company may interpret the roadmap slightly differently. Here are some of the various types: - Project roadmap - Product roadmap - Value roadmap - Lean roadmap - Agile roadmap Roadmaps are often represented visually and many try to fit the roadmap on one page so that reviewers can notice the big picture of the product timeline.  The **benefits** of developing and maintaining a product roadmap are numerous: - Clarifying the sequence of deliverables  - Showing teams how their efforts relate to the north-star vision. In other words, their ultimate goal.  - Showing stakeholders the incremental value that will be achieved over the course of the project (rather than reviewing it as one big delivery at the end) - Helping stakeholders roughly understand the layout of the work behind the deliverable There are also some **pitfalls** around roadmaps to avoid: - Letting stakeholders think the roadmap is set and unchangeable. This may cause stakeholders to impede teams’ ability to adapt in response to new information, as well as put a lot of pressure on teams to achieve deadlines no matter what it takes. - Spending too much time fine-tuning delivery dates versus keeping them rough and improving specificity as the dates get closer - Putting all the work into creating the roadmap rather than producing the deliverables  Here are some **best practices** to help you get the most from your roadmaps: - Make it highly noticeable to the team and refer to it frequently. - Clearly indicate the highest priority items. - If possible, clearly indicate the highest value items. - Make it visible to your wider stakeholder group so that they can use it for their planning.  - Conduct regular reviews of the roadmap with sponsors, stakeholders, and the team to ensure that it is still providing the blueprint for the project. To learn more about some best practices for building product roadmaps, check out this article: [Product Roadmap First Principles](https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/product-roadmap-first-principles-empower-scrum-teams-align-w-stakeholders) ## **Key takeaway** Roadmaps are important for any well-managed project, but they are especially useful to Agile teams. Having a shared roadmap about what the team is delivering over a longer time period is an important way to connect the work that the team does on the sprints with the broader vision for the project. This helps the team stay motivated through the rough patches and leads to a great sense of accomplishment as roadmap deliverables are achieved.