Roadmap slides are found in almost every strategy and consultation presentation, but they can have very different layouts and levels of detail. In this short post, we will explore various roadmap slides and offer a few tips and tricks for building your own.
Roadmap slides are visual representations of a strategic plan, typically used in presentations by consultants, businesses, and project managers. They function like a map, laying out the key milestones, goals, activities, and timelines for achieving a particular objective.
Roadmap slides are often part of the "resolution" part of project presentations and often go together with an overall Recommendations slide and some immediate Next Steps slides.
While both roadmap slides and Gantt charts are commonly used visual representations of a plan, they typically serve different purposes.
A Gantt chart is a project management tool that assists in planning and scheduling projects of all sizes. It shows project timelines, tasks, and dependencies, making it ideal for detailed planning and visualization of complex projects. Gantt charts often serve as a shared blueprint for various departments, keeping everyone aligned and focused on their roles and overall goals.
Conversely, a strategy roadmap typically presents a broader, less granular plan focused on visualizing the steps toward a vision or goal. It helps clarify the "how" and "when" of achieving strategic objectives. Unlike Gantt charts, which follow a number of fixed design principles, there is a large degree of freedom regarding what a Strategy roadmap can look like (as seen in the examples below).
Utilize these three tips to ensure your roadmap slides are clear and engaging:
Crafting detailed roadmap slides takes time. Having a library of robust and flexible templates can speed up the process.
The Slideworks' Consulting Toolkit Template' for PowerPoint contains a range of 'consulting grade' roadmap slides, providing a solid foundation for your strategic presentations.
Here are a few examples of commonly used roadmap template slides:
Roadmap for market roll-out - Slideworks Consulting Toolkit template
Roadmap for market roll-out - Slideworks Consulting Toolkit template
An example of a slide showing a high-level roadmap from a business case for a new digital venture.
Four-phase high-level roadmap - Roadmap for the creation of a new digital venture - Slideworks Business Case Template
...And a few more examples collected across McKinsey, BCG, and Bain:
BCG Germany - 9 week project roadmap with workstreams and milestones
McKinsey - Long-term technology roadmap for an automotive OEM
Bain - High-level implementation roadmap with priorities
BCG - project roadmap with phases and high-level timelines
A roadmap slide is a visual map of the key milestones, activities, goals, and timelines for reaching an objective. Consultants use it to show an audience how a strategy or project moves from today to the end state, usually in one slide.
A roadmap is strategic: it shows the broader how and when at a level an executive audience can absorb. A Gantt chart is an operational tool with task-level detail and dependencies, better suited to project management software than to a presentation.
Four elements: a timeline, milestones marked clearly, the main activities, and the goals they serve. Group activities into color-coded workstreams and highlight where the project stands today. Real examples in the article come from McKinsey, BCG, and Bain decks, including a nine-week project roadmap.
Match the detail to the audience. Implementation teams get detailed roadmaps with activities per workstream. Executives get a high-level view with phases and milestones only. Building both versions from the same underlying plan is standard practice in consulting teams.
