Your priority should be "to prioritize"

You can’t build everything at once. Do NOT even make an attempt.

From the outside, we imagine the "killer" features of any "delightful" product fell from the sky. If there's one thing that product managers dread more than the launch, it would be prioritization. The drive to build the right thing that acquires, retains, and delights customers trumps everything.

Building the right "it" needs PMs to do something extraordinary: sort backlogs . Every PM wants their work to truly move the needle. Here's how to do it:

1. Define Your Scoring Criteria

2. Choose a Framework

3. Score Each Feature

4. Map & Review

5. Align with Strategy

6. Communicate & Iterate

1️⃣ Define Your Scoring Criteria

• Impact: What business or user value does this feature unlock?

• Effort: How much time, engineering work, design, QA, etc.?

• Confidence (optional): How sure are you about your impact estimate?

• Risk (optional): What might go wrong if we build it?

2️⃣ Choose a Framework

• Impact / Effort Matrix

• RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort)

• ICE (Impact, Confidence, Effort)

• MoSCoW (Must, Should, Could, Won’t)

3️⃣ Score Each Feature

• Gather estimates from your team (devs, designers, data).

• Assign numbers (e.g., 1–5) or use actual hours/weeks for Effort.

• Calculate a final score (e.g., R × I × C ÷ E for RICE).

4️⃣ Map & Review

• Plot all features on your chosen matrix or sort by score.

• Look for natural cut-offs: “Everything above X score ships in Q2.”

• Host a quick prioritization workshop with stakeholders—share the data.

5️⃣ Align with Strategy

• Cross-check top candidates against company goals (revenue, retention, growth).

• If a high-score feature doesn’t advance your big bets, re-evaluate.

6️⃣ Communicate & Iterate

• Publish a transparent roadmap: “Here’s how we scored and why.”

• Re-score monthly or after major learnings (user feedback, metrics shift).

• Celebrate when low-effort, high-impact wins land!

Here's a challenge...

1. Take your top 10 backlog items this week.

2. Score them on Impact vs. Effort

3. Plot them on a quick 2×2

4. Share the result with your team and pick your next sprint’s winner!

Prioritization is choosing what to build next. This is the only step in the productizing process that ensures delivering maximum value to customers with minimum chaos.

#Prioritization #ProductManagement #BuildTheRightThing #PMTips #Prioritize