How can I show work in the roadmap that has not yet been allocated to a particular time period

[Andy Buxton]

Hi I'm using the roadmap macro to show my team's work using bars placed in various swimlanes. 

The available view has the calendar going horizontally across; I use months and drop markers in to show each quarter of the Financial Year. 

Where work is scheduled for a particular quarter I move the relevant bar into that quarter. However, where work hasn't yet been scheduled into the year's plan there's no place to put these bars. At present I place them in Q1, making it look like the work has completed. This obviously isn't satisfactory. 

I'm reluctant to take this work off the roadmap; I need to show how much work there is in total and help reveal where we'll have pinch points. 

I'd appreciate suggestions about how to show all this "yet-to-be scheduled" work.

For example, could an additional column be created and titled accordingly? Are there alternative views for the roadmap, e.g. "Doing Now", Doing Next", "Backlog"? which could have labels attached to give an indication of which quarter they're expected? 

Many thanks in advance. :)

[Ste Wright · Accepted solution]

Hi @Andy Buxton 

If there's no dates for a backlog item yet, what about simply having it in a Backlog list below the roadmap - so it's not added until its planned?

There's also other native Atlassian tools which might be better placed to visualise this - for example...

• Jira...
  • Create roadmap items in Jira
  • Use the Timeline and/or Advanced Roadmaps to visualise them
  • Filter off items with no dates
• Jira Product Discovery - probably the most suitable option based on your needs - as this can be visualised as Now/Next/Later

I'd try JPD if I were you!

Ste

[Andy Buxton]

Hi Stephen, 

Just a note to thank you for coming back to me with your suggestions. 

Very much appreciated. 

In fact across our programme I do indeed supplement the embedded road map with a table. In this table I show the work that's already broken down into tickets and those that haven't yet been addressed. 

So, people can either engage with the graphic version of the road map, and/or go straight to the table of activities. 

I think my reluctance to remove anything from the graphical road map is that anyone glancing at it in isolation may not appreciate the totality of work to be tackled; even if it hasn't yet been allocated a time slot in the year! 

Thank you for recommending Jira Product Discovery. Certainly something for us to try out. 

Best. Andy