Main idea

The intermediate tier of a roadmap — topics seriously considered, not yet committed — is the one people forget to limit. It looks harmless: nothing is promised there, so nothing costs anything.

It costs two things all the same. It blocks circulation: as long as that tier is full, topics held in reserve cannot move up, and those already there stay candidates for too long. The system then gives an impression of movement without producing decisions any more.

And it changes nature. A waiting tier with no limit becomes a political pre-backlog: every function drops its topic in to keep it visible, nobody owns the constraint, and presence in the list replaces the arbitration nobody wanted to make. What gets negotiated is no longer the topic's priority, it is its visibility.

Why it matters

It says where to look when a roadmap seems well held and nothing moves: not in the committed column, which is always short, but in the tier just before it, where the queue has rebuilt itself under a more respectable name.

It also gives a reading of additions. A topic dropped at that tier by an influential function is not a prioritized topic: it is a topic nobody refused, and the refusal is still owed.

Nuances and limits

A wide intermediate tier can be sustainable if it is neither reread, nor promised, nor discussed in meetings — but it is then an archive, and it should be called that rather than presented as preparation.

And the limit does not have to be a number of cards: a maximum time in the tier, or a review that removes as much as it adds, produces the same effect.

Open questions

• How do you refuse a deposit at that tier when it comes from an executive, without turning every refusal into a conflict of authority?