Product Prioritization Frameworks For Product Managers
Have you ever worked on a project and wondered how much progress and effect you made with all of your efforts? Have you ever been tasked with prioritizing the product backlog but had no idea where to begin? Have you ever been entrusted with conducting a narrative mapping session but didn’t know who to invite to start the conversation? If you’ve seen or begun to realize that you’re not moving closer to your goals, it may be time to re-evaluate your prioritizing framework and how you’re organizing that framework for execution.
The key to growth is understanding how to prioritize and systemize executable, actionable tasks. You will stay stagnant and immature unless you comprehend the objective of prioritizing and learn the how-tos.
As a Product Manager, or in any capacity, the skill or inability to master prioritizing may be the difference between success and failure. You’ll either make it and be praised by your peers, or you’ll be sent out if you don’t know how to manage the issue.
To avoid the latter, I produced this guide to prioritizing frameworks.
How to Select the Best Prioritization Framework
Before diving into the number of prioritizing framework alternatives, perhaps overloading yourself trying to find out which framework to pick, it may be useful to first understand what you’re attempting to prioritize. Trying to pick which prioritizing framework to utilize without understanding what you’re trying to prioritize is like having a map without a destination: you won’t know where to go or where to begin.
Here are some leading questions to ask to help you decide which prioritizing framework is appropriate for you and your project.
What are your top priorities?
Understanding what you’re attempting to prioritize, whether it’s needs, features, functions, or raw data (quantitative or qualitative), is the first step in selecting which framework to use.
What’s the point of prioritizing?
What are you hoping to gain from the prioritizing process? In the big scheme of things, what value impact will prioritize this body of work have? It could be useful to review your OKRs and KPIs.
Who are the people involved?
Certain prioritizing framework alternatives, depending on your audience and team size, may make the prioritization process more efficient and successful than others.
How much time do you have available?
Finally, determining how much time you have concerning the entire project timetable and milestones can assist you in determining which framework is most suited for your scenario.
Overall, no one framework is superior to another. Most of the time, it comes down to whatever framework is ideal for the individual project and team you’re working with. Each framework has advantages and disadvantages. Finally, regardless of the framework you choose, it will assist you in evaluating your priority levels and guiding you in choosing the prioritizing of your task based on quantitative data input and output.
“By utilizing quantitative rankings, charts, and matrices with values directly tied to your customer feedback and product strategy, effective product prioritization frameworks enable you to quiet the loudest person in the room.”
The Most Popular Prioritization Framework Alternatives
Kano
The Kano framework is built on a series of surveys designed to help customers understand their goals and needs. Kano methodology measures customer preferences and categorizes them into five quality categories based on the assessment of customer satisfaction versus the level of functionality, similar to Value vs Effort if the generalization of the job at hand is qualitative rather than quantitative
The five quality categories are as follows:
- One Dimensional Quality — This is what the buyer desires.
- Quality that is required — What the buyer expected.
- Delighters / Attractive Quality — What the buyer did not expect but is pleased to receive.
- Indifferent Quality — What the consumer is not focused on and, for that matter, does not care about.
- Reverse Quality — What the consumer dislikes and does not want. They would rather not add this functionality than strive to enhance its implementation.
Pros and Cons of the KANO Model
PROS: You look at each feature or initiative from the customer’s eyes. From a product management standpoint when you’re consumer-centric, it’s critical to ensure you’re satisfying your consumers’ demands.
CONS: This approach does not consider any hard quantitative data, such as cost, income, or measurement effort.
MoSCoW
The MoSCoW framework, like the Kano model of prioritizing, responds to the demands and requirements of the customers. At the end of the day, it’s effectively a “wishlist.” What we mean by wishlist is essentially what the name stands for, MoSCoW is an acronym that stands for:
Must have, should have, could have, and Won’t have.
In further detail:
- Must-Have — Features required to fulfill your fundamental needs for a working solution to address your primary problem. This is a non-negotiable requirement.
- Should Have — Given the time and resources available, these enhancements should be explored to make the product more comprehensive.
- Could Have — These qualities, like the Delighter/Attractive Quality in the Kano model, are excellent to have. It’s not what the customer expected, but he’s glad to have it.
- Won’t Have — Features that aren’t required. Having them would slow down your development process and stretch out your delivery date even further.
Pros and Cons of MoSCoW Method
PROS: It is simple and quick to express your priorities to a group of non-technical people. It not only aids in prioritizing the body of work, but it also aids in resource allocation.
CONS: The primary emphasis here may get muddled when deciding to prioritise or release criteria. If the Product Manager isn’t focused on the needs at hand, there’s a chance you’ll overestimate your “Must Have.”
RICE
RICE is an objective-based priority ranking approach that focuses on four distinct criteria: Reach and impact. Confidence. Effort. (Hence the abbreviation.)
- Reach — The number of users who will be influenced by a feature or product.
- Impact — At what level would the user find a feature most useful? (For example, low, medium, and high)
- Confidence — a percentage number that expresses your level of assurance in the other aspects of this formula. (For example, 90–100% — High, 60–80% — Medium, and 0–50% — Low)
- Effort — How long will it take the team to finish the feature or initiative? (ie: low, medium, high)
Once all of the data has been gathered, enter it into the following formula to compute the final score:
Each feature or item up for priority will have its determining RICE score based on the team’s pooled data. The RICE score will be utilized in a comparison study to determine which priority is greater; the higher the score, the higher the priority.
Pros and Cons of the RICE Method
PROS: The simplicity of the RICE method’s architecture is its advantage. With only four quantifiable input criteria, three of which have established value levels of the low, medium, and high, the team can swiftly appraise and evaluate the level of importance between each endeavor.
CONS: Because of its predefined settings, it is not the most exact and complete framework. The team will be unable to provide specifics since they must make broad assumptions about the amount of information. Furthermore, this strategy does not account for any dependencies. If the job contains dependencies, which it almost always does, it must be generalized and assessed within those preset value levels once again.
Cost versus Benefit (Weighted Scoring)
Unlike the RICE technique, the Cost versus Benefit method has more defined and explicit criteria. It is not always as simple as identifying a degree of impact number for a certain product or activity. With numerous things to examine, one characteristic may be completely different from another. Cost vs Benefit is not restricted to only four fundamental factors as shown in RICE; it may take into consideration as many criteria as the user believes necessary to make their final choice.
There will be a list of influential factors that will be assessed and weighted for each feature or program that is prioritized. For example, business value, customer benefit, and ease of implementation might all be considered.
Here’s an illustration of the Cost vs Benefit Table:
Scale of 0–10; 0 = little impact, 10 = great impact
Each criterion in the columns will be rated by the team(s) using a grading scale to determine their level of significance and influence. The grading system should be clear and consistent, and it should be established by whoever is in charge of the prioritizing process. In our case, our rating system ranges from 0 to 10, with 0 being the lowest and 10 being the most.
Pros and Cons of the Cost vs Benefit Method
PROS: The moniker Cost vs Benefit refers to how this methodology analyses your Return on Investment (ROI). It also aids in quantifying the significance of your features or projects.
CONS: Because of personal preferences, the list of factors being assessed may be skewed. One person or group may choose one set of criteria over another. The product manager must examine and offer an unbiased judgment on the list of weighted criteria that will eventually enhance the project’s overall success.
Story Mapping
A Story Mapping session essentially uses the user journey and helps the team to evaluate the user flow to develop user stories for MVP features that will be required for go-live. Unlike most previous frameworks, which base their prioritizing levels on internal viewpoints and qualitative analyses, this framework is centered on the user experience, allowing it to be more strict and simplified.
After you’ve created the user journey and user flow, you’ll establish a set of sequential criteria across a horizontal line (typically using post-it notes) that will describe each stage of the user journey across your product.
Pros and Cons of the Story Mapping Method
PROS: Teammates work well together. It focuses on the user experience. By improving your understanding of the customer experience and producing user stories for your product backlog, you can kill two birds with one stone.
CONS: It does not account for the amount of effort required for execution or the value of impact.
Value vs Effort
The Value versus Effort framework is concerned with the fundamentals of prioritizing. It weighs the quantity of value against the amount of work required for each feature or project. The framework is a basic 2x2 matrix that allows the team to quantify and evaluate each feature or initiative based on the amount of value it offers to the level of complexity and effort required.
In other cases generally, at the start of a new project, you’re still debating the problems rather than the solutions. In this scenario, the Value versus Effort model will assist you in categorizing your initiatives into four quadrants:
- Low Effort Low Value (bottom left)
- Low Effort High Value (top left)
- High Effort Low Value (bottom right)
- High Effort High Value (top right)
Pros and Cons of the Value vs Effort Method
PROS: If you’re short on time and need to prioritize fast, this framework can generalize which jobs involve the least and most labor while producing the greatest and lowest value output.
CONS: In terms of methodology, it is not the most exact. This strategy is fairly open-ended and allows for many cognitively biased judgments.
Choose a Prioritization Framework
As you can see, there are various possibilities for prioritizing, with different foci and functionality based on the project or who you’re working with. When contrasted, there is no one overarching structure that is superior. Given the circumstances, you must choose which framework will be the most successful. A solid framework will align and get everyone on the same page, as well as foster a collaborative atmosphere and paint a clear image of the product vision.
- Prioritization is more than merely listing features, initiatives, ideas, activities, or whatever else in order of significance.
- The framework you select should foster a collaborative working atmosphere and encourage the team to prioritize their work in terms of how it will advance the company’s goals.
- The framework should deliver actionable outcomes and quantifiable data to back up your product vision and push product strategy forward.
- When assessing and allocating the degree of importance to your features or efforts, keep in mind the human emotions involved as well as the prejudiced judgments of others.
Thanks for reading!!! Do let me know if this was insightful or even slightly helpful, any feedback is welcome. Want to connect with me, find me here: LinkedIn | Twitter | GitHub | Medium
