Product Roadmap Template: Now, Next, Later

A useful product roadmap template has three columns, Now, Next and Later, instead of a calendar, and five fields per item: the outcome for users, the theme it serves, how you will know it worked, a confidence level, and a status. Now holds what the team is working on and is confident about; Next holds what is shaped but not started; Later holds the direction, deliberately rough. Add a header with the product vision and the date of the last update, and a short list of what you are not doing. Below are the template as a spreadsheet, as a single slide and as a filled-in example, then the differences between an internal roadmap and the one you show customers.

This page is the template. The habits that keep a roadmap useful, such as writing outcomes instead of features and reviewing on a rhythm, are in product roadmap best practices.

Why Now, Next, Later instead of a timeline

Most roadmap templates you will find are timelines: bars across months or quarters. They look precise, and that is the problem. A bar in November looks as certain as one in September, and readers quote it back as a promise. Janna Bastow, co-founder of ProdPad, writes that she invented the Now, Next, Later roadmap↗ (opens in a new tab) in 2012, originally with the columns Current, Near Term and Future, because “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.”

Keep dates only where the outside world fixes them: a regulatory deadline, a contract, an event you have already announced. Put those in the item text, not in the structure.

The fields every item needs

• Outcome: what changes for users, in their words. “Customers can pay an invoice from the email,” not “Stripe integration.”
• Theme: the lasting goal it serves. Three to five themes for a small team.
• Measured by: the signal that tells you it worked, such as fewer support tickets about invoices.
• Confidence: high, medium or low. Now items should all be high; Later items rarely are.
• Status: not started, in progress, shipped, or dropped with a reason.
• Link: to the backlog items or tasks behind it, for readers who want the detail.

Product roadmap template for Excel or Google Sheets

A spreadsheet is the quickest free product roadmap template, and it sorts and filters without any setup. One row per roadmap item, one column per field:

Row 1:  Product: <name> | Vision: <one sentence> | Updated: <Month day, year> | Next review: <date>

Horizon | Theme | Outcome for users | Measured by | Confidence | Status | Tasks
------- | ----- | ----------------- | ----------- | ---------- | ------ | -----
Now     | A     | <outcome>         | <signal>    | High       | In progress | <link>
Now     | B     | <outcome>         | <signal>    | High       | Not started | <link>
Next    | A     | <outcome>         | <signal>    | Medium     | Not started |
Next    | C     | <outcome>         |             | Medium     | Not started |
Later   | B     | <problem to solve>|             | Low        | Not started |
Not doing | -   | <request>         | Reason: <one line>         |        |
Shipped | A     | <outcome>         | <result>    | -          | Shipped <date> |

Data validation: Horizon = Now, Next, Later, Not doing, Shipped
                 Confidence = High, Medium, Low
Sort by Horizon, then Theme.

Restrict Horizon and Confidence to dropdown values so the sheet stays sortable, and freeze the first row so the vision and the update date are always on screen. For a presentation, filter to Now, Next and Later and hide the Tasks column.

A one-slide PowerPoint layout

For a product roadmap PowerPoint template, resist the urge to build a Gantt chart. One slide, three columns, is easier to present and harder to misread:

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| <Product> roadmap                     Updated <Month day, year> |
| Vision: <one sentence>                                        |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
| NOW                | NEXT               | LATER              |
| working on it,     | shaped, not        | direction, not a   |
| confident          | started            | promise            |
|                    |                    |                    |
| [A] <outcome>      | [A] <outcome>      | [B] <problem>      |
| [B] <outcome>      | [C] <outcome>      | [C] <problem>      |
| [A] <outcome>      |                    |                    |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
| Themes: A <get paid faster>  B <fewer tickets>  C <larger customers> |
| This roadmap is a guide. Next and Later can change.          |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

Color the items by theme rather than by team, so the audience sees what the work is for. Three to five items per column is plenty; if Now needs more, it is not really Now.

Product roadmap example

An invented example: a small invoicing app for US contractors, with three themes. A, get paid faster; B, fewer support tickets; C, ready for larger customers.

Updated September 30, 2026 · Next review October 28, 2026

NOW
- [A] Customers can pay an invoice by card from the email.
      Measured by: share of invoices paid within 7 days.
- [B] Contractors can fix a sent invoice without calling support.
      Measured by: tickets tagged "edit invoice" per week.

NEXT
- [A] Automatic reminders before an invoice is overdue.
- [C] Office managers can invite staff with their own sign-in.

LATER
- [C] Invoices reflect state sales tax rules for multi-state jobs.
- [B] Contractors can answer common billing questions themselves.

NOT DOING
- Payroll. Reason: outside our focus; we integrate instead.

SHIPPED
- August 2026: Invoices show the job ZIP code and address.

Notice what is missing: engineering tasks, names, estimates and dates on anything in Next or Later. Those live one level down, in the backlog; a product backlog example shows what that layer looks like.

Internal vs public product roadmap

Keep one roadmap and derive the shared version from it, rather than maintaining two that drift apart. The shared version differs in what it leaves out:

• Leave out: internal code names, estimates, who is working on what, security work, and anything that names another customer.
• Soften Later: describe problems you expect to solve, not features you might build.
• Add: the date of the last update, a line saying it is a guide and can change, and a way to respond.
• Keep the Shipped list. It is the proof that the roadmap is kept.

US government teams are useful models because they publish their roadmaps openly. The U.S. Web Design System’s product roadmap page↗ (opens in a new tab) describes its roadmap as “what we’ve recently done and what we’ve got planned for the next 4-8 months,” and says the team reviews feature requests every four months.

Login.gov keeps a program roadmap↗ (opens in a new tab) for agency partners and the public, and as of September 30, 2026 shows an interim update on near-term priorities, with a fuller update planned for the start of fiscal year 2027. Both show the same habits: dated, scoped to a horizon, and honest that plans change.

Which template is best?

The best product roadmap template is the one your team will update. A spreadsheet suits a team that already lives in Excel or Google Sheets; a slide suits a quarterly board meeting; a board suits a team that wants the roadmap to be the work itself rather than a copy of it. Whatever the format, check it against three questions: can a reader tell what you are doing now, why, and how sure you are about the rest?

The template as a fenbs board

fenbs has four fixed lanes, To Do, Next Up, In Progress and Completed, and the product roadmap template maps Now, Next and Later onto them: In Progress is Now, Next Up is Next, To Do is Later, and Completed is the Shipped list. Copying it gives you a board with starter tasks to rename.

• Each item is a task of kind feature, enhancement or bug, with the outcome in the title and the “measured by” line in its note. Use a project or category for each theme.
• Share it by adding people. Customers and stakeholders get the Client role: they see the board and comment, and cannot change anything. Nobody who is not a member can see it.
• Write the vision and themes into the board’s AI context, which every connected AI assistant reads.
• Copy as Markdown turns the board into text you can paste into a slide, an email or a page you publish yourself.

The limits, so you can plan around them: no due dates or timeline view, no epics, no custom fields for confidence or theme, and no way to publish the board to the open web. If you need a page anyone can read, keep it by hand and paste in the Markdown.