# Now/Next/Later Done Right: Commitment Gradients, Not Date Camouflage

Now/Next/Later works because it matches communication to certainty. It fails when treated as dates-with-plausible-deniability — stakeholders decode "Next" as "Q3" and hold you to it. The fix is making the commitment gradient EXPLICIT.

## What each horizon actually promises

- **Now** = committed and staffed. Named outcomes, named teams, progress checkable. This column is a promise; treat additions to it as promise-making (with the same ceremony).
- **Next** = validated intent. We believe in it, discovery/derisking is happening, but it can be displaced by learning. The honest gloss: "our current best plan, not a commitment."
- **Later** = direction. Themes, not features. Anything here phrased as a feature ("SSO", "mobile app") will be read as promised — phrase as problems ("enterprise access management") to keep the option space open.

Publish the gradient definition WITH the roadmap, every time. The single sentence "items in Next have moved before and will again" prevents 80% of roadmap grief.

## Theme-first structure

Columns contain *themes tied to outcomes* ("reduce time-to-first-report — activation +X"), with candidate features as bullets beneath. This keeps the roadmap stable when tactics change: features can swap under a theme without the roadmap "changing", because the promise was the outcome.

## The narrative layer (the part that's actually the skill)

A roadmap without a story is a wishlist with columns. The narrative connects: where we are (the honest starting state) → what we believe (the strategic bets, stated as beliefs) → therefore Now/Next/Later. Every item should be *derivable* from a stated belief; an item nobody can trace to a belief is either a pet project or a missing belief — both worth surfacing.

## Movement hygiene

When items move DOWN (Next → Later, or off): say so proactively with the reason ("we learned X"). Silent removals are how stakeholders learn to screenshot your roadmap. A visible "graduated / moved / retired" log turns roadmap changes from betrayals into evidence the process works.

## Audience variants

One source roadmap, rendered thrice: internal (full detail + confidence notes), customer-facing (themes + Now specifics only), sales (Now + the "safe to sell" line drawn in blood). Three roadmaps maintained separately WILL diverge and WILL be caught.
