Now / Next / Later roadmap template

Sections

Now
Next
Later, each item tied to an outcome and confidence

How a tough reader scores it

When you score a draft against this format, the Critic evaluates this roadmap. The weights add up to 100; the fixes for the weakest criteria arrive as cards in the editor.

Criterion	Weight
Items are problems or outcomes, not feature lists	25
Clear link to strategy	20
Confidence decreases with horizon and is labeled	15
Evidence supports Now items	15
A "Not doing" list shows real trade-offs	15
Understandable by a non-product stakeholder	10

How it works in SecondPen.ai

Open the template and the editor writes the blank once, with a line of guidance under each heading that you delete as you fill it in. Write your abstract and the editor names the format it reads like. Ask for a document with a slash command and it offers to start from the matching format. When the draft is ready, the Critic scores it against the criteria above, the way this format's toughest reader would, and the three highest-leverage fixes become Editor cards.

More in Product management

Amazon 2-pager / 1-pagerAmazon's short narrative for smaller decisions or early ideas before a full 6-pager
Product Requirements Document (PRD)Industry-standard spec; modern lean versions from Marty Cagan (SVPG) and teams like Figma, Intercom, and Asana
Product opportunity assessmentMarty Cagan, SVPG — ten questions to answer before building
Shape Up pitchBasecamp's Shape Up (Ryan Singer, 2019)
Opportunity Solution TreeTeresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits (2021)
User story with acceptance criteriaConnextra format ("As a … I want … so that …"), INVEST criteria (Bill Wake), Gherkin Given/When/Then (BDD)
Product launch plan / GTM briefStandard product marketing practice (tiered launches used at Atlassian, HubSpot, Google)
Release notes / changelogKeep a Changelog convention with Semantic Versioning