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Product roadmap prioritization offers a repeatable method for deciding which new features to focus on and which belong on the back burner. This article looks at four popular methods in detail.
A product roadmap outlines the vision, direction and progress of a product over time. It aligns the team and stakeholders around short and long-term goals, helping to prioritize features and initiatives. Roadmap prioritization is the process of determining which features, projects, or initiatives should be addressed first based on what is most closely aligned with business goals, resource constraints and market needs.
Effective prioritization ensures that the most valuable and impactful elements are highlighted on the roadmap, driving the product towards its strategic objectives. And while there are multiple established approaches, this article explores four effective methodologies for product roadmap prioritization.
Product Roadmap Prioritization Methods
The following are four common ways to prioritize features on product roadmaps. Understanding these methodologies can enhance clarity and focus, ensuring that the most valuable features and projects are prioritized.
Product Roadmap Prioritization Method #1: Value vs Effort
At its core, the Value versus Effort approach involves identifying initiatives that offer significant value to customers while requiring minimal effort during implementation. In other words, these are low-hanging fruits — initiatives that can make a remarkable impact without draining a team’s resources.
Focusing on these initiatives can deliver exceptional outcomes that resonate with customers and drive business forward. Conversely, initiatives that are on the other side of the dial, delivering less value and requiring more effort, should typically be put on the back burner unless other factors deem them worthwhile.
The Value versus Effort approach is widely embraced by product managers worldwide. It’s a powerful concept that enables us to strike a balance between delivering high value to customers and optimizing development efforts.
Balancing Challenges and Differentiation
It’s tempting to completely shy away from initiatives that are in the upper right quadrant of the Value versus Effort graph. These are initiatives that pose considerable challenges to develop. It’s important, however, to not overlook them entirely. Though they may require more effort to implement, they have the potential to provide unique differentiating features that set products apart from the competition.
By including these initiatives in our roadmap, we can seize opportunities to innovate, create unique value propositions and cement our position as industry leaders.
Product Roadmap Prioritization Method #2: Weighted Scoring Model
The weighted scoring model for product roadmap prioritization allows us to assess initiatives based on their value, cost and risk. This provides a comprehensive framework for making informed decisions. In this model, each initiative is assigned scores for various factors. The value score captures the potential impact and benefits the initiative can bring to customers and the business. This score reflects how well the initiative aligns with a business’s strategic goals and their customer’s needs.
Additionally, the model incorporates cost considerations beyond just the development efforts. It encompasses ongoing support costs, the involvement of customer success teams and the potential need for additional services or purchases. Cost considerations also incorporate the element of risk, which plays a crucial role in the decision-making process. By assessing the level of risk associated with each initiative, we can evaluate its feasibility and potential impact on a product and organization.
Incorporating Benefit Columns and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Enhancing the weighted scoring model by incorporating benefit columns and key performance indicators (KPIs) helps to ensure a more comprehensive evaluation. Having a benefit column allows you to focus on specific KPIs or North Star metrics. These are metrics that are most relevant to a product’s success and a company’s overall business objectives. Aligning initiatives with these core metrics gives you a clear understanding of how each feature contributes to achieving your organization’s overarching goals.
Product Roadmap Prioritization Method #3: The Kano Model
The Kano model offers a unique and insightful approach for product roadmap prioritization. This model was originally created in the 1980s by Noriaki Kano to classify customer preferences. It allows you to categorize features based on their ability to deliver customer delight. This provides a framework to create exceptional experiences and differentiate your product in the market.
The Kano model recognizes that not all features are created equal in terms of customer impact and satisfaction. Some features have the power to surprise and delight customers, exceeding their expectations and leaving a lasting impression. These features go beyond functional requirements and elevate the overall user experience. By understanding and including features that delight your customer on your roadmap, you can create memorable moments.
The Kano model categorizes features into three main types: delight, performance and essential features. Each type plays a distinct role in shaping the customer experience and contributing to your product’s success.
Delight Features: These features aim to surprise and exceed customer expectations. Delight features are those unexpected aspects of your product that bring joy and satisfaction to users. Including these features on your roadmap is essential for creating memorable experiences and fostering customer loyalty. They differentiate your product and set it apart from competitors. As you invest in delight features, you deliver an inversely proportional increase in value to customers, making it a highly beneficial investment.
Performance Features: These features focus on improving the overall performance and usability of your product. They enhance speed, efficiency and responsiveness which results in a smoother and more enjoyable user experience. Performance features provide a linear increase in customer satisfaction. By consistently investing in these features, you can meet customer expectations and keep pace with evolving market standards. Enhancing performance aspects such as faster loading times or streamlined workflows directly contribute to customer value and satisfaction.
Essential Features: These features serve as the foundation of your product, ensuring that it remains competitive and meets basic user needs. Essential features represent the minimum requirements for your product to stay in the game and fulfill customer expectations.
The Kano model includes two other features worth noting:
Indifferent Quality: These are features that customers are indifferent toward. Their presence or absence does not significantly impact customer satisfaction. An example might be the color of a power cable for a device.
Reverse Quality: These features can lead to dissatisfaction if present and satisfaction if absent. Sometimes a feature that is assumed to be positive can be seen as negative by some users. For example, some people might find a constant app notification annoying and prefer not to have it.
Product Roadmap Prioritization Method #4: The RICE Model
The RICE scoring model was designed for product managers in recent years and has become a valuable tool. It was first introduced by Sean McBride while working as a product manager at Intercom. It provides a structured framework that helps evaluate and prioritize ideas based on their potential impact and feasibility.
The RICE model incorporates four key factors: Reach, Impact, Confidence and Effort. Product managers can make informed decisions and allocate resources effectively by systematically considering these factors.
Reach: The reach score in the RICE model represents the number of people, customers or prospects an initiative will impact. It quantifies the potential audience or user base that the feature will reach. For example, if you have a thousand customers and a feature has the potential to impact 500 of them, the reach score would be 500. Evaluating reach helps gauge the scale of the impact a feature can have on your target audience.
Impact: The impact score assesses the qualitative or quantitative effect that a feature will have on your customers. It measures the degree of positive change or value the feature will bring. The impact can be evaluated qualitatively by considering how exciting and impactful the feature will be for customers. Alternatively, it can be quantified by measuring specific metrics such as conversion rates, user engagement or revenue growth. By assessing impact, you can prioritize features that have the potential to make a significant difference to your customers and drive business outcomes.
Confidence: The confidence score reflects the level of certainty or confidence you have in the success and impact of a feature. It incorporates development estimates, feasibility and alignment with your strategic goals. Confidence is subjective and relies on your intuition and assessment of various elements. A higher confidence score indicates a higher level of certainty that the feature will deliver as expected and meet the desired outcomes.
Effort: The effort score represents the resources, time and effort required to develop and implement a feature. It considers factors such as development complexity, required team size and estimated timelines. Effort can be assessed using various methods, such as assigning high, medium, or low effort levels or using relative sizing techniques like t-shirt sizing. Understanding the effort in implementing a feature allows product managers to balance the expected impact with the available resources and make realistic prioritization decisions.
The RICE scoring model is highly customizable and adaptable to suit the specific needs and context of your company. While the core framework remains the same, you can tailor the model to incorporate additional factors or modify the weight assigned to each component based on your unique requirements.
For instance, you can introduce additional criteria such as strategic alignment, customer feedback, or technical complexity to the model. By customizing the model, you ensure that it aligns closely with your company’s goals, priorities and decision-making processes.
Furthermore, engaging stakeholders in the RICE scoring model can enhance its effectiveness. By involving key stakeholders, such as development teams, marketing, sales and customer support, you gain valuable insights and ensure a collaborative approach to prioritization.
Educating stakeholders about the RICE model and its methodology also helps them understand the rationale behind your decisions. This fosters a shared understanding of the prioritization process.
Differentiating Roadmap Prioritization from Backlog Prioritization
It’s important to differentiate between roadmap prioritization and backlog prioritization. While both are essential components of product management, they operate on different levels and require distinct approaches.
Roadmap prioritization involves the strategic planning that shapes the overall direction of a product. It considers multiple factors, such as competitive differentiation, customer value and stakeholder needs. This macro-level approach enables us to select the right initiatives for a product’s roadmap, aligning them with the product’s vision and strategic objectives.
Backlog prioritization deals with the more granular aspects of development. Here, you work with a pre-existing list of stories, continuously assessing their value and development effort. Techniques like the Fibonacci sequence or story points help us assign values to individual stories and determine their priority. Backlog prioritization ensures that a team is productive, and that their resources are used effectively, focusing on the immediate needs of development sprints.
By understanding the distinction between roadmap prioritization and backlog prioritization, you can approach each with the appropriate mindset and methodologies. This clarity empowers you to strike a harmonious balance between strategic planning and agile execution.
Product roadmap prioritization allows you to make the most of resources while optimizing the growth and development of products. Regardless of the method you choose, it’s important to have a repeatable and reliable system in place that you can apply to every product in your portfolio. Not only does this give your products the best chance of success, it ensures that your decisions align with both customer needs and business objectives.
Read more about product roadmaps in the following resources:
How to build a brilliant visual product roadmap
The complete guide to product roadmaps
