(2022-10-18) Barstow Why I Invented The Now-Next-Later Roadmap

Janna Bastow: Why I Invented the Now-Next-Later Roadmap. The Now-Next-Later roadmap exists because timeline roadmaps aren’t effective, simple as that. Timeline roadmaps insist on deadlines, which means product teams are deprived of the flexibility that allows them to do their best work.

product teams should stay focused on continuous discovery

Discovery means staying aware of customer needs and business opportunities, and ensuring that the company is building the right thing according to recent data. Not churning out-of-date stuff from last year’s to-do list.

The Now-Next-Later roadmap is a product management tool that organizes work into three time horizons, from immediate to long-term, starting with the most urgent problems to solve. This roadmap format conveys the overall product vision, as each element of work is tied back to a business objective.

Why use a Now-Next-Later roadmap?

Now-Next-Later roadmaps are lean by nature,

Here are five more reasons

1. More human and flexible

Time horizons are powerful because they allow you to move forward with a broad plan, yet only make commitments to what lies directly ahead of you.

2. Allows different levels of certainty

The Now column is definite, while the Later column is full of possibilities.

3. Saves time

you don’t waste hours planning stuff into the future that you ultimately might not (or should not) build.

4. Tied back to objectives

The NNL roadmap forces you to stay in touch with your business objectives and build with them in mind.

5. More impactful product decisions

The format helps you focus on the goal

What belongs in the Now, Next, and Later columns?

The Now, Next, and Later columns each contain product initiatives or ideas. But these initiatives and ideas vary in their level of certainty, scope, and how fully they’ve been spec’d.

The Now column contains the initiatives that you are working on, well, now. These items are clearly defined, much more detailed, and completely spec’d out.

The Next column is what will happen once everything in the Now column is complete. These are broken down less finely, with fewer specifics and details.

The Later column is everything else you’ve proposed doing, but it won’t happen until sometime in the undefined future

The Later column keeps these problems on your radar – this is so important for ensuring your product vision stays consistent

How to use a Now-Next-Later roadmap?

1. Prioritize at the problem level

This ensures you are building useful solutions into your product, rather than loads of nice-to-have features.

To each problem, you attach all of the different ideas, potential features, and experiments

2. Define your product initiatives

“Initiatives” are the prototypes, the experiments or tests, and the final solution you’re pushing to development.

You need to define these initiatives in the NNL roadmap, and then sort them based on urgency and certainty

3. Tie them back to business objectives

Each product initiative must connect to a business objective, and this needs to be clear.

Talking about your product roadmap to stakeholders can be tricky or even daunting, especially if you (and everyone else) are new to working without deadlines in a Now-Next-Later format. The truth is that most of the company is experiment-driven, and the product team should be no different!

Because this entails a whole shift in mentality, you will likely need to change the product management vocabulary you use when you speak to stakeholders.

There are many pitfalls you can avoid with a Now-Next-Later roadmap, but here are three of the most important ones.
Endlessly shifting deadlines
Low team morale
Becoming a feature factory