Roadmap Template in Excel

Roadmap Template in Excel (Table of Contents)

• Explanation of Roadmap Template in Excel
• How to Create a Roadmap Template in Excel?

Explanation of Roadmap Template in Excel

Roadmap Template in Excel is a tool that is used to measure, trace and forecast the performance of any product. It consists of all types of information required for any product. To access and apply any roadmap template, we can get that from the MS Office website. To create a Roadmap template in Excel, give a heading to the template, then list all the stages and activities under them in a different column and prioritise Low-Medium-High with a separate column for Results. Now for every product, we must have stages from Completed, Current, Near Term and Future, and each stage must have the activities involved.

The project roadmap should contain the following:

1. Important milestones
2. Key events, timeline
3. Duration of each event & deliverables

How to Create a Roadmap Template in Excel?

The roadmap Template in Excel is very simple and easy. Let’s understand how to create a Roadmap Template in Excel with some examples.

Example #1

Initially, we need to enter the data table where it consists of three columns, i.e. Key event or milestone, start date & time taken, or duration of a task (No of days).

The table contains a list of each task or milestone of the project from beginning to end with a time frame for each event. Including Key Events & Decisions, the Start Date of that event & No of days to complete it, or the duration for each event.

Go to the Insert tab and select 3-D Stacked Bar Chart.

Now, you can observe a blank chart area appears next to the table range.

On the chart area, right-click, under that, select the option of “select data”, and select the data source dialog box window.

Select the Add option in the legend entries in the Select Data Source dialog box window (Series).

Now, we need to enter each column data set of table range, edit series window dialog box appears, in that, initially select the start date column range, i.e. in that series name to enter start date column title name cell, i.e. “B3”, Later in the series values, enter the start date range, i.e. by selecting from cells “B4” to “B17” and click on OK, now start date with data bars appear in the chart area (Blue Color).

Click on OK, again the Select Data Source window appears, in that you can observe Date Series added.

In the select data source dialog box window, select add option in the legend entries (Series); again, you need to select the “No of days” column range, i.e. in that series name, enter the “No of days” column title name cell, i.e. “C3”, Later in the series values, enter the “No of days” range, i.e. by selecting from cells “C4” to “C17” and click on ok, Now “No of days” with data bars appear in chart area (Orange color).

Once you click ok again, the Select Data Source window appears.

Now the Axis label range needs to be added, the Axis label popup appears.

To enter data in the axis label range text box, select a key events range, i.e. by selecting from cells “A4” to “A17”, and once you click on OK, the chart will be shown as below.

Now, all the tabular data is represented on the chart; you can resize the chart area based on your preference by dragging towards the right & left. Currently, some issues in the chart, i.e. Key events are in reverse order: It can be rectified by right click on key events, Select Format Axis.

Format axis window appears, in that checkmark the Categories in reverse order.

Once the categories in reverse order are selected, key events appear in the correct order based on the start date.

Now, we need to remove blue data bars, which represent Start Date, by clicking on it & Select Format Data Series.

Format data series window appears, in that select the option of no fill & no line, so that the Blue data bars disappear & you select those date range in blue data bars & delete it.

Now, we need to set a date range to get rid of the huge gap in the date range; it can be rectified by selecting date series by clicking on Format Axis.

Now, we need to set the minimum & maximum bounds range; the minimum range is set by selecting the first event date and converting the start date format to number format, and check out for the number & copy-paste it to the minimum text box.

Convert Date into Number Format.

Copy the start date number format of the first event & last event, and paste it in minimum & maximum under axis options in the bonds section; once you update the date in the minimum text box, you can see the change in date series range, i.e. from 1/1/2006 instead of 7/24/1998

Note: Maximum bond, you can set as 42300 for better appearance.

The orange data bars & value in it can be formatted as per your choice; here, I changed the data bar color from orange to blue color & converted it from box bar to cylinder bar and font format of the numeric value in it from black to white color for a better appearance.

Go to the Design Tab. Click on Quick Layout.

Now, click on the Quick Layout tab and select the chart as shown below.

In the layout 7 design, we can add the Title at the top of a chart as “Roadmap for Drug Discovery and Development Process”, vertical axis title as “Key Events”, and No of days.

Start date data range can be added prior to Key Events of the chart to know the start date of each event or milestone.

Here data series are linked to the chart; once you update the date or event, the automatically chart gets updated.

Things to Remember About Roadmap Template in Excel

• The roadmap template helps in the reduction of the amount of time spent in each phase of a project with updated planning & insights to projects.
• The roadmap template is most commonly used by product managers of pharma & IT companies.

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This is a guide to the Roadmap Template in Excel. Here we discuss How to Create a Roadmap template in Excel along with practical examples and a downloadable excel template. You can also go through our other suggested articles –

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