Top 7 Prioritization Frameworks for PM’s
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas.” This Steve Jobs quote beautifully explains the importance of prioritization in today’s world. Every day new features, requirements, and projects are to be added, and the way we prioritize them can make or break the product.
The Four Pillars of Prioritization Framework
How do we know that we are building the right product? According to Airfocus a leading prioritization and roadmapping tool, these four pillars provide a clear understanding of how to create products your users want and are willing to pay for. They are:
- Manage Feedback
- Define Prioritization Framework
- Execute Prioritization (what to build)
- Build Roadmap (when to make it)
The Seven Most Popular Prioritization Frameworks and How to Use Them
“Did you know that 49% of product managers claim that setting roadmap priorities based on market feedback is their biggest challenge” [source mind the product]
In the era of information, data is available easily, but it is difficult, almost impossible, to pick out valuable insights from all this noise. So, to make the process easier, we have seven prioritization frameworks to help you filter out data points or requests that are not crucial for objective decision-making.
1. Weighted Scoring
Weighted scoring is a popular framework for prioritizing your product roadmap. Here, you rank several features on various criteria using a benefit-versus-cost analysis. The advantage of working with the Weighted Scoring Model is that you can determine the requirements to generate your score and reduce emotional bias. But, on the downside, it is so flexible that it does not have a system for measuring previous or future scores.
2. Value vs. Effort
Value vs. Effort framework allows you to assess initiatives based on how much value they will bring and how difficult they will be to implement. All the items are placed on the quadrant that helps to visualize. The PM can decide how to distribute and prioritize initiatives.
This framework is fast to implement and makes room for healthy discussions among stakeholders. The downside is that it leaves a lot of space for cognitive bias at the hands of people doing the estimation.
3. RICE
The RICE method is widely adopted and used by product owners and product managers to prioritize feature releases and projects. It is ideal for you and your team to prioritize the order of the initiatives and features.
The final score represents ‘total impact per time worked.’ The higher the number, the closer the high impact/low effort
4. Kano Model
The Kano model is used to prioritize features based on how likely they will satisfy or delight users. The three main criteria on the graph are:
- Delighters: it differentiates your product from the competition.
- Performance features: customers respond well to high investments in performance features.
- Basic features: the minimum expectation by customers to solve their problems.
The Kano model can teach teams not to overestimate exciting features and to stop under-estimating must-haves. The major downside is creating, and understanding surveys can delay the release of the feature or product.
5. Story Mapping
Story mapping is also a widely used framework that highlights the importance of differentiating stories to generate strategic release plans. You can map the flow of the product’s behavior as it progresses from the first interaction to the last objective.
This method is cost-effective and allows an outside-in approach, but at the same time, it is not feasible for projects that are complex.
6. MoSCoW
The MoSCoW method allows you to figure out what matters the most to your clients and stakeholders by classifying features into four priority buckets.
- Must-Have
Essential features that need to be included in the product. Failing to do so would result in a failed release.
- Should-Have
The requirements are important but not essential. They add significant value but are not crucial.
- Could-Have
The features are nice-to-have initiatives that do not affect the core functions. It will have a negligible impact if left out.
- Won’t-Have
Not a priority for the foreseen timeframe and will not be included in this release. Hence, out of scope.
The advantage of this approach is that it allows stakeholders without a technical background to be involved in the product prioritization process. Also, it is a quick, easy, and intuitive way of prioritizing with time boxes. The downside is that the team can overestimate the number of Must-Have features.
7. Priority Poker
Priority Poker is a fun and easy design game for prioritizing features and products.
It allows collaborative prioritization between cross-functional teams and can be used in various projects. The pros of this approach are that everyone gets a say, and that maximizes buy-in from the team. Also, remote teams are part of the conversation as in-house ones.
Visualize Your Prioritization Process on The Roadmap
Your roadmap is the single source of truth to visualize your product’s short and long-term direction. The method includes milestones, items, responsible teams, themes, initiatives, and most importantly, progress.
Conclusion
Prioritization methods are a way to assess the many possible decisions to apply around an idea, a feature, or product. It should be a consistent, repeatable process that allows you to link your releases to more meaningful goals, but perhaps on the other hand we shouldn’t undervalue the science of psychology as a way to understand users, sometimes product teams tend to use rational tools and frameworks to deliver faster products, but customers rarely make their decisions based on a list of features.
They make their decision based on their perception of the product or service.
Understanding the user's emotions and behaviors is also one of the many secrets to building better products.
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