Roadmaps

[pegass]

Hi everyone,

I am not Visio user yet, but I think I will become one, when you can confirm here if the topic can be solved with this SW.

I need to figure out the way of making a roadmaps in easy, as automated as possible, way. By 'roadmap' I mean the image showing which product is (or is going to be) introduced where (country) under which brand and in which market segment (low, mid, top) - see attached art ;-)

1. Current situation:

Roadmaps exists only as a power point files. That means everytime they have to be updated (before important management meetings) everybody (all of the product managers) edit this power point slides manualy, which is really a PITA and very time consuming.


2. Idea of solution

Department manager has Visio installed on his PC. All the responsible PMs work with MS Excel file, having there a table with the name of product, phase in/out date, segment value aso. Whenever there is a need to generate updated roadmap, manager opens visio, imoprts fresh data from net-located excel file and generates new image, which is ready to be presented. Alternatively, online DB could take over the role of excel file.



Question to you, experienced ones, is Visio good for it? I guess yes, but then isn't it overkill for such a task?

TIA
Pegass

[Paul Herber]

Have a look at an article VisioGuy wrote a short time ago:
http://www.visguy.com/2009/08/04/automatic-chevron-process-shape/

[pegass]

Have a look at an article VisioGuy wrote a short time ago:
http://www.visguy.com/2009/08/04/automatic-chevron-process-shape/

Thank you, I will give it a try at home. Looks promissing, but I have to figure out link-to-excel topic, since it is not clear for me yet.

Pegass