Prioritizing Product Roadmaps

Part 2 – Successful Roadmaps Series

Roadmaps are a way of visually representing the capabilities and high-level timeline needed to achieve a specific vision, objective, goal, product, or project. They come in many different flavors, but the core component of the roadmap is the NOW, NEXT, and LATER concept.

The Now, Next, and Later categorization concept gives the team the ability to prioritize the way in which capabilities are delivered.  There are other ways in which you can prioritize the components on your roadmap. The New, Next, and Later method is a simple easy to use and effective way of prioritization. This technique can be used with the Product Backlog as well as the product roadmap making it a very flexible tool.

Let’s explore each of the categories.

Now

These are capabilities that we should be working on immediately because they have the highest priority with the key partners, stakeholders, and customers. Sometimes this can include foundational aspects that are needed in order to build a product. If the product is a house, the first thing you need to do is excavate the land to lay the foundation. These are also considered immediate core functionality capabilities and are directly part of the MVP.

Next

These are capabilities that we should be working on after the now has been completed. They are typically medium priority in that they are important but don’t need to be developed or constructed right away. These capabilities are needed to be successful in achieving the vision but can wait to be delivered as enhancements.

Later

These are capabilities that are of lesser important and don’t’ contribute much to the overall vision.

As a simple prioritization technique “Now, Next, Later” works well in having the team collaborate and build Product Roadmaps. In our next articles we will discuss other approaches to prioritize a roadmap.