--- title: "Choosing What Comes First: A Guide to Prioritizing What to Build Next" url: https://pragmaticleader.io/choosing-comes-first-guide-prioritizing-build-next/ author: "Aaron Wise" published: 2024-10-28 updated: 2024-10-31 description: "Use RICE for scalable growth-stage prioritization, ICE for startup speed, and MoSCoW for fixed-deadline clarity." categories: ["Leadership & Management", "Product Management"] tags: ["agile methodologies", "customer feedback", "development best practices", "effective decision-making", "growth-stage companies", "ICE scoring", "Kano model", "long-term planning", "MoSCoW method", "Opportunity Scoring", "prioritization frameworks", "product management", "product prioritization", "project management", "quick wins", "RICE scoring", "startup strategies", "strategic alignment", "Value vs. Effort matrix", "Weighted Scoring model"] --- # Choosing What Comes First: A Guide to Prioritizing What to Build Next > "The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do." — Michael Porter #### **Product Management Prioritization Frameworks: A Primer** In product management, effective prioritization is a linchpin of success. With limited resources, teams must choose what to build and when. But with so many competing ideas, it’s crucial to use a structured prioritization approach. Here’s an overview of popular prioritization frameworks, guidance on when each fits best, and a sense of what excellent prioritization looks like. - **RICE Scoring** - **RICE**—short for **Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort**—is a scoring system that allows product teams to prioritize tasks based on their potential reach and impact, balanced by confidence in the outcome and effort required. - **Reach** measures the number of people impacted. - **Impact** gauges the potential impact on each user. - **Confidence** reflects how certain the team is about their reach and impact estimates. - **Effort** assesses the resources needed to complete the task. - **When to Use**: RICE works well in growth-stage companies needing to balance innovation and scalability. It’s particularly useful when resources are constrained, and every task needs a clear ROI assessment. - **Maturity Stage**: RICE is ideal for teams with a clear user base and when scaling is essential. - **What Good Prioritization Looks Like with RICE**: Teams focusing on high-impact, high-confidence projects with reasonable effort scores will maintain momentum while proving value consistently. Avoid tasks with low confidence unless they’re high-reward and low-effort. - **ICE Scoring** - Similar to RICE, **ICE** stands for **Impact, Confidence, and Ease**. Here, **Ease** replaces Reach and assesses the simplicity of execution. - **Impact** indicates the potential outcome if successful. - **Confidence** shows certainty in the impact estimate. - **Ease** is a gauge of how simple or difficult the project is to execute. - **When to Use**: ICE is ideal for startup environments where quick decisions and rapid experimentation are necessary. - **Maturity Stage**: Early-stage companies benefit most from ICE, as it encourages quick wins and rapid iteration without needing extensive validation data. - **What Good Prioritization Looks Like with ICE**: Effective use of ICE prioritizes high-impact, easy-to-execute projects, especially in areas where there’s high confidence. This framework empowers teams to test, learn, and refine ideas before investing heavily. - **MoSCoW Method** - The **MoSCoW Method**—**Must-Have, Should-Have, Could-Have, Won’t Have**—is an intuitive framework that categorizes items based on necessity rather than numerical scoring. - **Must-Haves** are critical for launch or project success. - **Should-Haves** add substantial value but aren’t critical. - **Could-Haves** are low-priority nice-to-haves. - **Won’t Haves** are tasks deprioritized for now. - **When to Use**: MoSCoW is helpful when deadlines are fixed, such as with new feature launches or seasonal releases. - **Maturity Stage**: The method works at any company maturity level but is particularly useful for mid-sized companies with established roadmaps needing fine-tuning. - **What Good Prioritization Looks Like with MoSCoW**: Effective prioritization here focuses on what must be done while identifying areas to revisit later, ensuring no energy is wasted on lower-priority elements. - **Kano Model** - The **Kano Model** helps teams understand the relationship between customer satisfaction and investment in a feature, dividing features into categories like **Basic Needs**, **Performance Needs**, and **Delighters**. - **Basic Needs** are features users expect; their absence causes dissatisfaction. - **Performance Needs** improve satisfaction linearly. - **Delighters** add unexpected joy and brand loyalty. - **When to Use**: Use the Kano Model when prioritizing features to improve customer satisfaction or loyalty, especially if you want to avoid feature bloat. - **Maturity Stage**: Great for early and mid-stage companies with a firm user base. It’s particularly effective when the goal is to surprise and delight existing customers. - **What Good Prioritization Looks Like with the Kano Model**: A good prioritization mix includes basic needs to prevent dissatisfaction, performance features to meet expectations, and strategic delighters to outshine competitors. - **Value vs. Effort Matrix** - The **Value vs. Effort Matrix** is a simple but powerful tool that maps features according to **value (impact)** and **effort** (resource investment). It identifies **Quick Wins** (high-value, low-effort), **Big Bets** (high-value, high-effort), **Fill-ins** (low-value, low-effort), and **Time Sinks** (low-value, high-effort). - **When to Use**: Great for small or resource-constrained teams needing to maximize impact without overcommitting. - **Maturity Stage**: Suitable at any company stage; however, early and growth-stage startups can especially benefit due to limited resources. - **What Good Prioritization Looks Like with the Value vs. Effort Matrix**: Teams focus first on Quick Wins and selectively choose Big Bets. Avoiding Time Sinks prevents waste, while Fill-ins keep minor improvements on the radar without diverting too many resources. - **Weighted Scoring Model** - The **Weighted Scoring Model** assigns values to tasks based on multiple weighted criteria (e.g., customer value, revenue potential, strategic alignment). - **When to Use**: This method works well in companies with complex strategies where prioritization must align closely with business goals. - **Maturity Stage**: Best for mature companies with defined strategies that need to prioritize competing initiatives. - **What Good Prioritization Looks Like with Weighted Scoring**: Tasks that align with strategic goals and have clear business benefits will be prioritized, ensuring resources are directed toward initiatives that fulfill high-level objectives. - **Opportunity Scoring (or Opportunity/Solution Tree)** - Opportunity Scoring, part of the **Opportunity/Solution Tree** framework, focuses on scoring features or tasks based on how well they address core customer needs or problems. - **When to Use**: Best for teams exploring new markets or new features in response to user feedback. - **Maturity Stage**: Ideal for mature companies with a solid customer base and product-market fit, especially those investing in continuous customer feedback loops. - **What Good Prioritization Looks Like with Opportunity Scoring**: Teams focus on initiatives that solve the biggest customer pain points. Prioritization efforts reveal a deep commitment to customer needs over vanity features. ##### **When to Use Which Framework** - **Early-Stage Startups**: Frameworks like ICE, Value vs. Effort Matrix, and MoSCoW are ideal, emphasizing rapid experimentation and quick wins. - **Growth-Stage Companies**: RICE, Kano, and Value vs. Effort are valuable as teams scale and must maximize ROI and customer satisfaction. - **Mature Companies**: Weighted Scoring, RICE, and Opportunity Scoring offer the depth needed for complex prioritization in line with strategic objectives. ##### ****What Good Prioritization Looks Like**** Effective prioritization: - **Aligns with Strategic Goals**: Initiatives tie back to clear business objectives. - **Balances Quick Wins and Strategic Projects**: Quick wins keep momentum; big projects drive long-term success. - **Responds to Customer Needs**: Customer feedback and satisfaction are front and center. - **Optimizes for ROI**: Resource investment is carefully balanced with expected returns. #### Wrapping up... In any stage of growth, choosing a prioritization framework that aligns with company goals, team size, and market position is essential. Effective prioritization isn’t just about what’s next on the list; it’s a deliberate strategy to drive growth and customer loyalty.