Now/Next/Later Roadmap Template

Now should turn over every 1-2 weeks as items ship. Next items should move to Now every 2-4 weeks. Later items should be reviewed monthly and promoted to Next when prerequisites are met. If nothing moves for 3+ weeks, either the items are too large or the team is blocked. The [Now/Next/Later roadmap type guide](/roadmap-type/now-next-later-roadmap) has more detail on cadence.

Add them to Now if they are truly urgent (production incident, security vulnerability, deal-blocking request). Bump the lowest-priority Now item back to Next. Document the swap in the Movement Log. If "urgent" requests happen every week, the root cause is not urgency. It is a broken intake process or unclear priorities. Raise this with leadership.

You can put dates on Now items (since they are actively being built). Avoid dates on Next and Later. The whole point of this format is that the future is uncertain, and the columns communicate that uncertainty visually. If stakeholders demand dates for Next items, give ranges ("late April to mid-May") not specific dates. The [guide to building a product roadmap](/guides/how-to-build-a-product-roadmap) covers how to communicate timelines honestly.

Now: 3-5 items (matches team capacity for 1-2 weeks). Next: 5-8 items (a few weeks of work queued up). Later: 5-8 themes (directional, not exhaustive). If any column has more than 10 items, you have not prioritized enough. The [RICE Calculator](/tools/rice-calculator) can help rank a long list down to the items that matter most.

Yes. Now items feed directly into sprint backlogs (Scrum) or the WIP queue (Kanban). The roadmap operates at a higher level than the sprint board. Think of the roadmap as "what are we working toward" and the sprint board as "what are we working on today." They are complementary, not competing. The [product roadmap glossary entry](/guides/how-to-build-a-product-roadmap) covers how different roadmap formats interact with execution frameworks. ---