I’ve been hearing more and more people using the Now Next Later framework, particularly here in California. As I haven’t heard many using it within news organisations, I want to share a few thoughts and use cases around it. 

Roadmapping is hard for a number of reasons. I’ve been on the business side needing some time frames and pushing developers to give answers because we need to plan launches, marketing, support, and more. Developers have often (and fairly) pushed back, telling me they are working on an unknown problem so times are estimated.

Good teams will also work on all knowledge they have available. So when new information becomes available, they need to adapt and build that into any promised timeline. By default, product roadmaps will ebb and flow based on new information, user needs, business needs, and, of course, urgent fires that need to be put out. 

Now Next Later is a simple framework that is exactly what it says. The graphic from ProdPad below is a good representation of how it should be used. The beauty of the framework is that it is simple — anyone can understand and use it. It helps teams stay focused on what is important and is exceptionally flexible.

Now, within news media, we can actually use this in a number of ways. Here are a few examples: 

It can be strategic

What are the company goals everyone should be focussing on now and what are the priorities within those? This is very much in the vein of Jason Jedlinksi’s presentation at a master class last year on building roadmaps (presentation here). He phrased it as priority, exploring, and not doing. It’s the same thing with different words.  

It can be for conveying what teams will be working on and what they are not

Or at least not right now. Not only can you keep the teams focussed, but you can use this to explain what time is being spent on to stakeholders in the business. It’s easy to understand that if something isn’t a priority, it falls into the Next or Later categories.

It can be for a new feature

What is the MVP we need now to get something out? How will we expand on this next to build out the core into a lovable product? What are the bells and whistles we want to add later?

It can also be granular

What we are focusing on now, including KPIs leading to what we will do once we reach those KPIs and the future priorities. Think of it in sprints. Now is the first sprint. What needs to be achieved and how will it be done? Once these actions are complete, what needs to happen? Who will work on it? And what are the final points needed “later” to complete this goal?

Of course, this isn’t a perfect model and it can be over-simplistic for many needs. But as a way of framing our thinking, we should all be using something like this to prioritise our workload and that of our teams. 

If you are interested in this, you can get a free template on Product Board here.

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