Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tool

We help more than 400,000 users build products customers love. Get started with the best roadmapping tool. Sign up for a free 30-day trial of our web-based roadmap software. We help more than 400,000 users build products customers love. Try the worldʼs #1 roadmap software 30-day free trial. Plan every date. Strategic communication planning is a roadmap to take you where you want to go, and it generally starts with a solid Communications Audit. Let's say you want to take a road trip from New York to Los Angeles with some friends. Lots of roads could take you there. With the new update, we are ending support of Roadmap Planner and making it part of Goals by KeepSolid. Discover our new web app for planning and execution strategy. Now you can build strategy roadmaps smarter, faster, together on Any Device.

1. Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tool Reviews
2. Microsoft Planner Roadmap
3. Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tool Organizer

In spite of the untold dollars spent on marketing the term,Unified Communications (and/or Collaboration—UC or UCC) has been the victim of unclear definitions at best and is often defined differently by vendors and their customers. UC is not a single product or technology. It's a collection of functions that, ideally, are integrated into a single user interface. These services most often include all or a subset of the following:

• Voice over IP (VoIP), IP Telephony (IPT) and/or IP Contact Center (IPCC)
• Unified Messaging (voicemail and email)
• Secure Instant Messaging (IM)
• Audio, video, and web conferencing
• Desktop productivity software
• Scheduling and calendaring tools
• Shared online workspaces
• 'Service enablers' – Presence awareness and management, Location-based services, Directory services

My work with AT&T customers across all vertical markets and segments indicates that one of the biggest challenges companies face regarding UC is the development of a strategy that closely aligns with the goals of the business, efficiently delivers the features that users need, and generates positive economic value. At AT&T, we believe a comprehensive UC strategy based on the following four 'pillars' addresses these customer needs:

• Defined Service Catalog: The UC services a customer needs to provide end users, ideally based on what business problems they solve or new capabilities they generate
• Detailed Solution Architecture: The vendor platforms a customer intends to use and how they will be integrated
• Transformation & Migration Plan: What, where and when the customer is planning to deploy, including the resources & staffing the company will need
• Defined Delivery & Support Model: The operational support model that identifies where the components will be installed and who will monitor, manage and administer the solution

AT&T Consulting has created an eight-step approach, outlined below, for helping customers develop these required components and provide clear alignment between the needs of the business and the associated technical, operational and financial requirements and constraints.

1. Define a guiding vision
2. Identify & document business, technical and functional requirements
3. Evaluate current voice and data environments
4. Identify & develop viable solution alternatives
5. Evaluate alignment between chosen solution capabilities & requirements
6. Develop a step-wise transformation roadmap, based on the chosen solution
7. Perform financial analysis & develop a business case
8. Plan for continuous service improvement

In this first of a series of posts on UC, we'll discuss the first step: Defining a guiding vision.

Defining a Guiding Vision

As Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass famously said, 'If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.' This applies to UC as well as any other technology implementation or migration. In order to be successful, it is critical to begin with the end goal in mind.

In many organizations, UC tends to be a 'push' to the Lines of Business (LOBs) and end users (e.g., 'This is a great new technology and you should use it') whereas for maximum business benefit the solution really needs to be a 'pull' in the opposite direction. Without this grounding in business needs, UC can end up being a technology that is deployed for its own sake rather than as a set of tools and enablers for moving a company forward.

To begin changing this dynamic, an open question-based approach often helps. For example, what kinds of problems or challenges exist in the business unit that could be addressed with UC? What 'pain points' and 'cost buckets' are you aware of that could be resolved or at least improved using UC capabilities? And on a positive note, what new capabilities do you anticipate UC will provide? Are there new ways of interacting with your company's ecosystem of partners, suppliers and customers that UC could enable? How would that differentiate your organization from your competitors? Are there new sources of revenue that could be generated using UC or is your primary focus cost savings and avoidance? Is the company planning to acquire other firms, expand organically or contract due to divestiture?

In its simplest form, what do you need UC to do and what would it mean to your organization? The answers to these and other questions can help you develop a guiding vision for UC. Atom 1 11 1 – a hackable text editor.

A great example of a guiding vision for UC comes from a recent UC Strategy & Roadmap engagement we delivered with a consumer goods manufacturer in the Midwest. This customer had identified several 'business imperatives' and definitions of what it wanted its UC solution to do for the company. One of its biggest challenges was the amount of time it took for business decisions to be made and the results subsequently communicated throughout the organization. As a result, one of the principles of its guiding vision for UC was to provide 'the right information to the right person at the right time.'

The customer realized (and correctly so) that this should be a plank in its UC vision so that downstream decisions, such as how to include mobility in the company's UC strategy or which user types should be addressed, could be made in keeping with this context. Other customers may have similar or completely different expectations for what the UC solution needs to provide. The key takeaway is that the guiding vision should be based on the needs of the organization doing the planning—not the UC provider.

Save time with free roadmap templates for Excel and PowerPoint

Roadmaps are excellent visual tools that help you articulate your business vision to your clients and executives. But as useful as they are, creating them is a long and challenging process. Wifi scanner scan view & compare 2 9 5. With our pre-built templates, you can spend less time creating your roadmap and more time managing your project.

On this page you'll find five of the most common roadmap templates you can use in your next stakeholder meeting, developed in two versions for easy use with your usual MS Office tools:

• a roadmap template for Excel, where you can use standard Excel features like shapes and colors to build your roadmap manually
• a roadmap template for PowerPoint, where you can use the Office Timeline Pro add-in to create your roadmap automatically or move the shapes by hand if you don't have Office Timeline Pro yet

Top 5 free roadmap templates

Explore our series of roadmap templates for Excel and PowerPoint especially designed to save you time and get you started quickly:

• 1. Product roadmap template
• 2. Project roadmap template
• 3. Technology roadmap template
• 4. IT roadmap template
• 5. Strategy / Business roadmap template

Choose from these most popular roadmap examples, download and customize them with a few clicks to make them suit your project.

Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tool Reviews

1. Product roadmap template

A product roadmap is a high-level overview of your product strategy and how that fits into your business vision. It can show both the strategic side and the practical side of your product offering, the reasoning and the planning behind your implementation decisions.

Your product roadmap template can include important aspects like product features, iterations, and the releases that are planned in the future, and you can represent them on the roadmap as key milestones, tasks or on different swimlanes.

To help you fast track your next product strategy meeting, here are two pre-populated templates that you can easily customize in Excel and PowerPoint (using the Office Timeline Pro add-in).

Microsoft Planner Roadmap

2. Project roadmap template

When managing any kind of project, you'll probably need to create a project roadmap, which is a strategic outline of the project goals and the key deliverables. When you build it, it's best if you present project tasks, milestones, and goals or initiatives grouped on various swimlanes.

The project roadmap is an extremely useful tool for stakeholder buy-in and communication, since it helps create a common understanding on the strategic reasons for sponsoring a project. When all stakeholders are on the same page, you can overcome obstacles easier and deliver your project on time and within budget.

Use these templates below to turn your project roadmap presentation into an effective meeting. Choose between Excel and PowerPoint (with the Office Timeline Pro add-in) to create a project roadmap that would impress your stakeholders.

Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tool Organizer

3. Technology roadmap template

A roadmap can be a useful tool when it comes to a product or project, but it can just as easily help you make strategic decisions regarding your technology investments. And since roadmaps are strategic planning instruments, it's useful to create a technology roadmap to document your infrastructure initiatives too. You can organize the swimlanes to include infrastructure solutions, tools, or processes that are in place today and what's envisioned for the future.

Working with templates can make things a lot easier for you and save you hours or work. Check out these examples of technology roadmap templates we've created for Excel and PowerPoint (and the Office Timeline Pro add-in) to get started faster.

4. IT roadmap template

Another frequent type of roadmap you may be creating is an IT roadmap, which is basically an overview of the way your organization uses IT systems to achieve its business goals. For example, an IT roadmap can show the strategic plan created to migrate your organization's data or adopt a new tool.

You can include various IT initiatives like apps, internal processes, or new technologies and you can use color-coded swimlanes to represent each initiative or goal. You can use the IT roadmap to show current capabilities or the developments that are planned.

Here's an example of an IT roadmap template that you can download and change the deliverables to make it work for you. There's an Excel version and a PowerPoint one (with the help of the Office Timeline Pro add-in) so you can choose whichever suits you best.

5. Strategy roadmap (or Business roadmap) template

A visual representation of the key moments that mark your strategic business initiatives is extremely useful, especially if you need to include different themes and span across a longer time frame. Communication with stakeholders becomes easier if you show them a strategy roadmap, a more general plan that explains the overall vision for growing your business.

The strategy roadmap (or business roadmap, as it's sometimes called) can present your initiatives or themes on different swimlanes and include current state, long-term goals, and future steps needed to implement the business strategy.

2. Project roadmap template

When managing any kind of project, you'll probably need to create a project roadmap, which is a strategic outline of the project goals and the key deliverables. When you build it, it's best if you present project tasks, milestones, and goals or initiatives grouped on various swimlanes.

The project roadmap is an extremely useful tool for stakeholder buy-in and communication, since it helps create a common understanding on the strategic reasons for sponsoring a project. When all stakeholders are on the same page, you can overcome obstacles easier and deliver your project on time and within budget.

Use these templates below to turn your project roadmap presentation into an effective meeting. Choose between Excel and PowerPoint (with the Office Timeline Pro add-in) to create a project roadmap that would impress your stakeholders.

Roadmap Planner 1 7 – Strategic Communication Tool Organizer

3. Technology roadmap template

A roadmap can be a useful tool when it comes to a product or project, but it can just as easily help you make strategic decisions regarding your technology investments. And since roadmaps are strategic planning instruments, it's useful to create a technology roadmap to document your infrastructure initiatives too. You can organize the swimlanes to include infrastructure solutions, tools, or processes that are in place today and what's envisioned for the future.

Working with templates can make things a lot easier for you and save you hours or work. Check out these examples of technology roadmap templates we've created for Excel and PowerPoint (and the Office Timeline Pro add-in) to get started faster.

4. IT roadmap template

Another frequent type of roadmap you may be creating is an IT roadmap, which is basically an overview of the way your organization uses IT systems to achieve its business goals. For example, an IT roadmap can show the strategic plan created to migrate your organization's data or adopt a new tool.

You can include various IT initiatives like apps, internal processes, or new technologies and you can use color-coded swimlanes to represent each initiative or goal. You can use the IT roadmap to show current capabilities or the developments that are planned.

Here's an example of an IT roadmap template that you can download and change the deliverables to make it work for you. There's an Excel version and a PowerPoint one (with the help of the Office Timeline Pro add-in) so you can choose whichever suits you best.

5. Strategy roadmap (or Business roadmap) template

A visual representation of the key moments that mark your strategic business initiatives is extremely useful, especially if you need to include different themes and span across a longer time frame. Communication with stakeholders becomes easier if you show them a strategy roadmap, a more general plan that explains the overall vision for growing your business.

The strategy roadmap (or business roadmap, as it's sometimes called) can present your initiatives or themes on different swimlanes and include current state, long-term goals, and future steps needed to implement the business strategy.

Discover the strategy roadmap templates we have built using Excel and PowerPoint (and the Office Timeline Pro add-in). These will help you create a simple but clear strategy roadmap for your next stakeholder meeting and show off your presentation skills.

If you need any help with choosing a roadmap software, check out our dedicated section on roadmap tools.