The Now Next Later roadmap is a lean method of planning product initiatives. It takes the emphasise away from calendars and deadlines, and on to the value of product work – prioritising the most valuable opportunities.

You can use this board as a ‘live’ collaborative roadmap, and to communicate the decisions to stakeholders and people it impacts.

How to use the Now Next Later Roadmap

Add the product or business goals at the top of each column. This will help your team decide if initiatives are aligned to the correct goals. Then populate the board with all the product initiatives your team are planning and place them in the appropriate section:

‍Now – Problems and opportunities that you are addressing, or about to address. These are well defined and detailed.

Next – These will happen once everything in Now is complete. These are less detailed and may rely on results from the items in Now.

Later – These are opportunities or initiatives that you’ve proposed, but are far off. These may be hazy, and solutions undefined.