The Decision Log and Product Debt Toolkit
Three ready-to-use templates for logging roadmap decisions, auditing product debt, and making trade-offs visible before they compound.
A practical toolkit to help you…
- Make roadmap decisions with the context your future self needs
- Identify the six types of product debt hiding in your team’s workflow
- Say trade-offs out loud and write them down before they become invisible
- Build a shared vocabulary for debt across product, engineering, and design
- Stop losing the “why” behind every decision you make
What’s inside The Decision Log and Product Debt Toolkit
1. Roadmap Decision Log
For the decisions that will still matter in 6 months. Each entry captures what’s being decided, what’s at stake, what information is missing, and how you’ll know if you got it right.
2. Debt Inventory
A diagnostic checklist covering the six types of product debt most teams carry: tech debt, design debt, process debt, discovery debt, roadmap debt, and culture debt. Each type includes the decision pattern that typically creates it and three questions to help your team assess severity.
3. Trade-off Statements
A fill-in-the-blank format for every time your team consciously accepts debt. Captures what you’re choosing to do, what you’re leaving out, why, what debt you’re accepting, when you’ll revisit, and who needs to know.
About the author
Janna Bastow is the inventor of the Now-Next-Later roadmap, and Co-Founder and CEO of ProdPad. Janna is an authority in Product Management and a thought-leader and popular speaker on the subject of roadmapping. Who best to give you a Now-Next-Later roadmap template?
