Anyone in the start-up community knows there’s no one secret to success. But in a world of increasing customer expectations, tightening profit margins and competitors on every corner, getting your product right is non-negotiable.
At Airwallex, we use prioritisation frameworks to set clear and effective roadmaps for product development. The right prioritisation framework will help you make better strategic decisions, avoid standstills in your operational workflows and minimise biases.
We have deployed a range of prioritisation frameworks that have assisted the business in product development.
Effort Impact Matrix
The Effort Impact Matrix (also referred to as the Action Priority Matrix) helps you identify activities that will provide the most value for your customers.
You can use the Effort Impact Matrix template to prioritise work based on the amount of effort it requires versus the impact it will have on customers. Under this framework, your work will fall into the following four quadrants:
- Minimal-effort and low-impact.
- Maximum-effort and low-impact.
- High-impact and minimum effort.
- High-impact and maximum effort.
Once you have visibility on what work falls under what quadrants, you can take steps to reduce the amount of time and energy wasted on projects that aren’t providing real value.
Effort Impact Matrixes are incredibly useful when determining resource allocation and task prioritisation. But they shouldn’t be used exclusively to inform operations – it’s important to incorporate your customers’ needs into the mix.
RICE
The RICE prioritisation framework is a scoring system developed by Intercom’s product management team.
To calculate your RICE score, use this formula: (Reach X Impact X Confidence) ÷ Effort = RICE score:
- Reach (the number of people who are affected by the feature within a given period).
- Impact (using the following scoring scale based on the level of impact a feature has, with 3 being massive impact, 2 as high impact, 1 as medium impact and 0.5 as low impact).
- Confidence (as a percentage value, with 100 per cent equalling high confidence in your data, 80 per cent as medium confidence and 50 per cent as low confidence in your data or the absence of data altogether).
- Effort (the amount of time a feature requires from your team to create, manage and implement).
The RICE framework is powerful in that it allows you to quantify the impact of the total amount of time spent on developing a feature.
MoSCoW
MoSCoW prioritisation helps businesses put product features into four categories in conjunction with a fixed timeframe. MoSCoW stands for:
- Mo: Must have (critical to project success).
- S: Should have (important but not vital).
- Co: Could have (nice to have).
- W: Won’t have (unimportant).
When categorising your product features, prioritise the ones that bring the most value to your business early on. .
The MoSCoW formula works best for companies that have multiple launches in the pipeline and the data to put into your analysis, as it can help you prioritise what products should be given the greatest energy and resource allocations.
Choosing the right prioritisation framework isn’t as difficult as you might think, you just need to ask yourself the right questions.
How much time do you have to determine your priorities? If you’re time-poor, opt for the most basic frameworks, like the MoSCow.
How much data is at your disposal to inform your decision-making? If you have a wealth of accessible data and insights, an advanced framework will work great for your prioritisation goals.
With the right framework in place, you can have confidence that you are prioritising the projects that will deliver the products that will have the greatest impact on your customers’ satisfaction and ultimately bring you commercial success.
