# Timeframes and the roadmap disclaimer > How to choose roadmap timeframes, what Now, Next and Later promise, how to answer “roughly when?” without inventing dates, and how to write a product roadmap disclaimer for each audience. - Course: [Outcome-Based Product Roadmaps](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps.md) - Module: From needs to themes - Lesson 8/15, ~41 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/timeframes-and-disclaimer ## Roughly when? Choosing roadmap timeframes **Alex Tutor:** Another week of your roadmap work at CatChow, and the board's question is half answered. **Sofia:** The themes went down well. Ian says the board member liked getting an answer in customers' words. Now for the second half of the question. **Ian:** He wants a short follow-up by Friday: roughly when will customers see these changes? I don't need a month for every feature anymore. I need something I won't have to take back in March. **Alex Tutor:** Fair request. The honest answer has two parts: timeframes that show order and certainty, and a roadmap disclaimer that says what the page promises. First, check your units: are Now, Next and Later still right for CatChow? The unit should match how fast your plans change. **Sofia:** There are other options? **Alex Tutor:** Months suit a young product that changes direction every few weeks. Quarters or halves suit businesses tied to a calendar, or to partners who plan ahead. Years suit hardware or regulated products with long cycles. **Alex Tutor:** **Now / Next / Later** suits teams that learn fast and can't honestly see far ahead. Many teams mix: three columns, each with its calendar meaning written on it. The format in detail: [Now Next Later roadmap](/blog/now-next-later-roadmap). ![Three columns of cards on a wall: sharp, detailed cards on the left, simpler ones in the middle, and only faint dotted outlines on the right.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/timeframes-and-disclaimer-illustration-2.webp) **Sofia:** We're a bit of everything: the subscription is mature, the clinic channel is still learning, and the board thinks in quarters. > **Exercise:** Which **timeframe** format fits CatChow's roadmap best right now? ## Now, Next, Later: what each column promises **Alex Tutor:** Then keep the three columns and write on the page what each one means, in the calendar and in commitment. Now is this quarter, to the end of December: the team is on it and fairly sure. **Alex Tutor:** Next is January to June: the problem is clear, the solution is still open. Later is beyond June: a direction we believe in, without detail. **Alex Tutor:** Quick check before Lucy weighs in: what should decide what goes into Now? > **Exercise:** Now covers this quarter, to the end of December. What should decide which themes go into Now? **Lucy:** And please: Now has to fit what my team can actually do by December. Not everything that feels urgent. **Sofia:** So Now is a capacity decision, not a wish list. **Alex Tutor:** Yes. Order inside Next matters too: when a Now theme is done, the top of Next moves first. **Sofia:** And Later? People will read it as “yes, eventually”. **Alex Tutor:** Some will. That's why Later holds directions, not promises. Let's check that nobody on the team reads it the other way. > **Exercise:** Items in Later are commitments like those in Now, only with a later delivery date. ## A roadmap without dates: dates for evidence, not features **Sofia:** Still, what do I tell the board member? “Now, Next, Later” alone won't answer “roughly when”. **Alex Tutor:** Start with what the date is for. The board doesn't need ship dates; it wants to know when the money turns into results. So give dates for evidence. **Sofia:** Like when we'll know the clinic theme works? **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. The pilot in two PurrPoint clinics starts in November, so the first stock-out figures arrive in early December. That's a date you can keep. **Sofia:** And the rollout to all 14 clinics? **Alex Tutor:** Say what it depends on: the pilot results and the new warehouse system. Order and dependencies answer “when” more honestly than a guessed month. ## Later is not a waiting room **Brandon:** If I can't have dates, can we at least put all twelve things from my sales list in Later? Then I can tell clients they're on the roadmap. **Sofia:** That's exactly the worry: Later as “yes, eventually”. **Alex Tutor:** It's the most common complaint about this format: Later becomes a dumping ground. Clients hear a promise, the team inherits a pile nobody chose, and the column outgrows Now and Next together. ![A cupboard is stuffed so full that boxes burst out of its doors and tumble toward a waiting customer.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/timeframes-and-disclaimer-illustration-3.webp) *Later holds directions, not a waiting room for every request.* **Sofia:** So what gets into Later? **Alex Tutor:** Themes linked to an objective, and only as many as the team could plausibly reach within a year. Everything else goes on a separate “not now” list, each item with a one-line reason. **Alex Tutor:** Then prune it at every monthly review: whatever hasn't moved in three reviews gets promoted, merged or dropped. Brandon gets something better than Later: a clear answer for each client. > **Exercise:** Which rules keep Later from becoming a dumping ground? Select all that apply. **Alex Tutor:** Later stays short partly because Now keeps emptying. What happens to a theme in Now once its work is finished? > **Exercise:** When a theme in Now is finished, the team can simply delete it from the roadmap: the page is only about what's ahead. **Alex Tutor:** Back to the board member's “roughly when”: when will clinics stop running out? Which answer gives a date you can keep? > **Exercise:** A board member asks when clinics will stop running out of prescription diets. Which answer is best? ## Dates that aren't ours to move **Brandon:** One date isn't up to us: the national veterinary conference on 23 May. Our stand is booked. Could we launch the clinic portal there? **Alex Tutor:** The conference belongs on the roadmap: it's a hard external date, set by the organizers, not by us. Put it on the page as an event. ![A calendar page with one square pinned by a big orange pushpin showing a tiny conference stand; all the other squares are blank.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/timeframes-and-disclaimer-illustration-4.webp) **Sofia:** But not the portal launch next to it? **Alex Tutor:** Not yet. The pilot hasn't even chosen a solution. A launch pinned to the conference is a promise, and if it slips, it slips on stage. **Sofia:** So we decide what to show there nearer the time? **Alex Tutor:** Decide it at a set moment, say after the pilot review, together with Lucy. If a launch there really matters, make it an explicit trade-off, not a quiet assumption. > **Exercise:** What should CatChow's roadmap show for the national veterinary conference on 23 May? ## Roadmap disclaimer examples: one plan, several audiences **Alex Tutor:** A **roadmap disclaimer** is a short note on the page that says what the roadmap is and what it doesn't promise: a direction that will change, not a commitment to features or dates. Who reads it decides how firm it must be. **Sofia:** Brandon wants to show PurrPoint what's planned around the pilot. And Ian once mentioned a roadmap page on our website. Does our disclaimer work for all of them? **Alex Tutor:** No. We'll build the partner version itself in module 5, but its disclaimer can be settled now, because each audience reads one differently. **Alex Tutor:** For our own people, a date, one honest sentence and the review rhythm are enough. A partner like PurrPoint needs firmer wording: no commitment to features or dates, the commitments live in the contract, and we review it together. **Sofia:** And the public page? **Alex Tutor:** Shortest and most careful: direction only, no dates, and a plain request not to base a purchase on it. Announce too much too early, and new clinics may wait for the portal instead of signing now: that's the **Osborne effect**. **Lucy:** Whichever version: put it at the top, where people actually read it. **Alex Tutor:** Agreed. And one for our own sales team: don't forward the page or quote Next and Later to clients; check with the product team first. > **Exercise:** Match each **disclaimer** to the audience it was written for. **Alex Tutor:** Lucy's point about placement deserves a test of its own. Here are two versions for the public page. > **Exercise:** Two ways to write the disclaimer on CatChow's public roadmap page. Which one does its job? ## A note for the board **Ian:** So what do I send the board member? Three or four sentences, please. And nothing I'll regret in March. **Sofia:** What each column means in the calendar, what's in Now and when the first numbers arrive, and what comes first in Next? **Alex Tutor:** Yes, plus what the bigger steps depend on. And a date only for evidence: when the board will see whether it works. **Sofia:** And no month for anything in Later. **Alex Tutor:** None. Certainty grows at every monthly review, and the detail can grow with it. Write it for him. > **Exercise:** What the page says: Now runs to the end of December, Next is January–June, Later is beyond June. The pilot in two PurrPoint clinics starts in November, and the first stock-out figures arrive in early December; the rollout to all 14 PurrPoint clinics depends on those results and on the new warehouse system. Write the note Ian, CatChow's CEO, can send the board member (3–4 sentences): roughly when will customers see the changes? Don't invent dates. ## A partner disclaimer PurrPoint can rely on **Alex Tutor:** Now the PurrPoint version. When Brandon shows them the pilot plan, the disclaimer has to hold up in their procurement manager's hands. **Sofia:** Firmer than ours, but still human? **Alex Tutor:** Yes. She needs something she can rely on. The contract gives her that; the roadmap gives her direction. Say which is which. **Sofia:** What it is, what it isn't, where the commitments live and when we review it together. **Alex Tutor:** That's the recipe. Two to four sentences, and no legalese. > **Exercise:** Write the disclaimer for the version of the roadmap that Brandon, the key account manager, will show PurrPoint, the 14-clinic partner chain (2–4 sentences). ## Case: a bookstore's twelve months **Alex Tutor:** The online bookstore is back. Its head of e-commerce took the vision work to heart and now wants to publish a roadmap. **Sofia:** With dates, I'm guessing. **Alex Tutor:** Twelve monthly columns, a Later box with seventeen items and “Subject to change” in grey at the bottom. He wants it on the website and in publishers' inboxes. **Sofia:** Format, columns, Later, hard dates, disclaimers. Everything from today. **Alex Tutor:** One hint: a bookstore has real calendar dates. Find them before you choose the format. > **Exercise:** Fix the timeframes and disclaimers of Chapterly's roadmap. ## What to remember **Sofia:** So Ian gets dates he can keep: when the evidence arrives. Brandon gets clear answers instead of a crowded Later. And every reader gets a disclaimer written for them. **Alex Tutor:** Timing on a roadmap is a promise about order and certainty, not about days. Date only what you can keep. > **Key ideas** > > - Choose the **timeframe** format by how fast plans change: months for a young product, quarters where a calendar or partners set the pace, **Now / Next / Later** where the team learns fast. > - Write each column's meaning on the page: Now is this quarter and fairly certain, Next the following one or two quarters, Later direction only. > - Answer “roughly when?” with order, dependencies and dates for evidence. Firm dates go only on hard external events and on work the team is sure about. > - Keep Later small: themes linked to an objective, pruned at every review. The rest goes on a “not now” list with a reason. > - The **disclaimer** changes with the audience: short for the team, firmer for partners, most careful in public. **Alex Tutor:** Next time: Lucy's engineers want more on the page. We'll add features, stage of development and confidence without burying the themes. - Previous lesson: [Customer needs as themes: an opportunity solution tree](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/customer-needs-as-themes.md) - Next lesson: [Going deeper: features, stages and confidence levels](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/features-stage-confidence.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.