How to Prioritize Features and Projects: The Ultimate List of Prioritization Frameworks

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Complete list of prioritization techniques (124 bullet points)
Grids (30)
Scoring (49)
No-score Sorting (7)
Qualitative classification (8)
Maps and canvases (7)
Activities/Games (13)
Processes (10)
Other prioritization questions

My hope is that this article serves the community in a few ways:

Helps managers spend less time reinventing the wheel
Inspires managers to improve their prioritization
Provides ideas for improving communication with partners
Spotlight contributions that so many have made from the 1980s to 2021

How to prioritize: What I learned

I wrote about some of my learnings while putting this list of prioritization techniques together.

Prioritization and sequencing are two different things
There are more ways to prioritize than I thought
Prioritization frameworks are not dead
One framework may not be enough
Important prioritization criteria are often missing
Grids and scores are not being leveraged to their full potential

Agreement Certainty
Impact vs Effort
Value vs Feasibility
PICK Chart
Risk vs Return
RVCE Matrix
Business Value, Effort, Risk
Value, Likelihood, Effort
Kano Model
Build, Partner, Buy
Gusto Prioritization Matrix
How, Now, Wow
Eisenhower Decision Matrix / Covey’s Four Quadrants
Big Bet, Home Run, Small Win
Market Newness vs Product Newness
Problem Definition vs Domain Definition
Business Goals vs Degree of Change
Time to MVP vs Market Differentiation
Market Impact vs Tech Newness
McKinsey prioritization matrix
Purpose Alignment / Nickolaisen Model
BCG Prioritization
4 Dimensions!
How many, How Often
Value Mapping from Intercom
Disruption vs Visibility Bug Prioritization
Nine-box Matrix Updated
Vision, Sustainability
Business Strategy Prioritization
House of Quality (QFD)
BTFB
RICE
ICE
ICE number 2
BRICE
LICE
DIE
PIE
Task Score
BUC
BREaD
TIR
Raveesh Dubey
Product Manager Triangle weighted scoring
DIY, Choose your own themes weighted scoring
Karl Weigers Relative Weighting weighted scoring
Modified three feature buckets weighted scoring
Customer Satisfaction, Business Value, Cost weighted scoring
ROI Scorecard
Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)
SIF (Shortest Item First)
LIF (Longest Item First)
Monster prioritization
Remco Prioritization
5-Pillar-Prioritization-Framework
Coverage, Magnitude, Cost
EFQ
Turn Ideas Into Products Questions
Expected Value
Opportunity Score
BACER
Risk-based prioritization
Pugh Matrix Theme Screening
Evidence Score
IDEA/E
CUP Method
Decision Diamond
Pairwise / Paired Comparison Matrix
AHP
Hierarchy AHP
Impact Estimation Table (IE)
PXL
Hotwire
Monetate
VIDEO
ASPIRE + SOAR
User Value Scorecard
HIPE
Desirability, Feasibility, Viability
LIFO
FIFO
Classification Rankings
Priority Groups
Bubble Sorting
Binary Search Tree
Binary Priority List
MoSCoW
Planning Game
70/20/10
Three feature buckets (sometimes 4)
Candy, Vitamins, Painkillers
4-UP
Easy Hard Expensive
4 Ds
Priority Pyramid
Bullseye Diagram
Story Mapping
Impact Mapping
Walking Skeleton
Systemico
Critical Path
Dot Voting / Cumulative Voting
Hierarchal Cumulative Voting
Multi Voting
Theory-W
Buy-a-Feature
Ping Pong Balls
TribeRank
Prune the Product Tree
Speed Boat
Poker Planning
In or Out
Family Feud
Even-over Statements
A, E, I, O, U
GRIDS
Ian McAllister
Mariano Capezzani 4 Step
Ruthless
KJ Technique
Prosono’s Priority to Action Framework
GEM model
Ranallo’s 100
Kareem Mayan

Read further for more information, images, and tons of resource links.

Lean prioritization grids, Matrices, Quadrants, Window Diagrams

section divider for matrices, grids, diagrams, quadrants

Impact vs Effort chart examples

Left to right: productplan.com, groupmap.com, reforge.com

Vertical axis: Impact/Value/Benefits, etc. (Specify one perspective: User or Business)
Horizontal axis: Effort/Complexity/Cost, etc. (for Team/Business)

Also known as Value vs. Complexity, Action Priority Matrix, Benefits vs. Cost, or Value vs. Cost, “Impact vs Difficulty”, and sometimes simply “The Four Quadrants.” This model can help product managers understand whether a feature is one for the backburner/filler/nice-to-have, a low hanging fruit/quick win, or something to discard altogether. Unsure what to do after everything is plotted on the cost vs value graph? Check out the PACE framework which proposes how to prioritize from this grid.

Value vs Feasibility chart examples

Left to right: IBM.com, nngroup.com, beekfast.com, cdss.org

Vertical axis: Impact/Value/Benefits/Importance, etc. (Specify one perspective: User or Business)
Horizontal axis: Feasibility

Read more about value vs. feasibility: IBM | Nielsen Norman Group | Mural | beekfast | CDSS.org

Vertical axis: Easy, Hard
Horizontal axis: Low Payoff, High Payoff

PICK stands for the categories that emerge in the quadrants: Possible, Implement, Challenge, Kill. This has the same effect as the Impact vs. Effort grid with the additional benefit of categories that are being easy to remember.

Read more about the PICK chart: Easy Projects | Wikipedia | Vertex42 | BPI

Vertical axis: Return on investment
Horizontal axis: Risk level

A great choice, especially when working in a risky area (compliance, reputation, etc.) Will Lord offers this matrix to help managers assess where they can maximize value to the business while having an awareness of whatever risks may be involved.

Weighted Scores

There is no one right way to use a weighted score. This is where you can really tweak a system to your team, organization goals, or product. Use whatever factors are important to you. They can be as simple or as complex as you’d like. Here are some examples of weighted scoring systems:

weighted score prioritization equation

theme screening prioritization scoring example

karl weigers relative weighting prioritization

modified three feature buckets scoring

ROI prioritization equation

Formula: ROI = Value/Effort

This is basically a score and table version of the Impact vs. Effort matrix above. Take a list of ideas/features/problem statements. Add a column for value or your impact currency of choice and effort (days, sprints, devs, hours, story points, etc.). Do the math! Simple.

Read more: Beyond20.com

LIF is the opposite of SIF. It means Longest Item First. This is not very normal and would be pretty narrow-minded to use as a product manager. Perhaps this could be helpful as a part of a larger score or for very specific types of work.

Read more: Beyond20.com

monster prioritization equation

Formula: (Reach * Customer Impact * Business Impact * Opportunity Cost * Confidence) / Effort

Structured similarly to RICE but with some improvements,

offers the Monster prioritization, splits Impact into two separate buckets — Business Impact and Customer Impact. The formula also adds Opportunity cost to help us move quickly.

Read more: Article

Impact estimation table prioritization screenshots

PXL prioritization framework screenshot

cxl.com

This scorecard comes from ConversionXL. This unique prioritization scoring technique revolves around UX considerations.

Is the change above the fold? Does it align with user testing findings? Questions like these are used to score an idea’s potential in terms of user impact and user-based evidence — qualitative and quantitative.

For PMs working with UX and User Research and looking for ways to integrate those learnings into their prioritization process, this framework could be a fantastic place to start.

Read more: Beyond20.com

The opposite of LIFO (Last In First Out), FIFO just prioritizes the first item that came up (or the oldest, earliest). For product managers, consider building in something that takes age into account as part of a custom score. Age may mean nothing to you, but depending on the team or product, this could be a relevant factor to consider and linked to delivering value for the business.

Read more: Beyond20.com

Article

Taking Classification Rankings one step further (and then more), Priority Groups was written about in 1998. Items are grouped initially into 3 broad groups — High, Medium, Low. We don’t stop there, however. From here, each group is then divided into High, Medium, Low subgroups. Then again and again, potentially. The groups are continually split up until there is only one item per group. The stack-ranked priorities can be found by reading left to right.

Read more: Article

bubble sorting screenshot examples

rubygarage.org

What is bubble sorting? Bubble sorting is simple and intentional way to stack rank ideas. By comparing 2 at a time and the “loser” of each round to the next, the most important features or ideas naturally “bubble” up to the top.

Read more: Article

section divider for qualitative themes, categorization prioritization techniques

These are qualitative and useful after a quantitative prioritization has already been done or beforehand to reduce a large list quickly.

How do you categorize priorities?

There are many different ways to categorize projects or items in a backlog. The best one to use will depend on the team and product. MoSCoW is one of the most popular methods. There are many others though like Three Feature Buckets, 4 D’s, etc.

What is the MoSCoW prioritization technique?

MoSCoW prioritization is a popular prioritization method where four buckets are established. The categories are: Must have, Should have, Could have, Will not have/Wish we could have. All items must go into one of these 4 groups. This is helpful for sifting through a large list quickly.

Kent Beck in his 1999 book Extreme Programming Explained discussed this activity which is similar to MoSCoW but the bucket definitions are certainly different.

In Planning Game, there are 3 categories:

Critical features or requirements needed for the system to function
Those that are not as essential but are important for the business
Nice to have

Ideas are added into one of these buckets. Then simply ranked subjectively within each.

Read more: Article

Three feature buckets prioritization examples

Left to right: livechat.com, product-frameworks.com, dzone.com, Left Travel

Metric Movers, Customer Requests, Customer Delight. I’ve seen a fourth bucket introduced sometimes, and that is Strategic. I support this.

Read more: Article

Multi voting can be a good way to get to through tradeoff decisions transparently and where everyone is comfortable. A group of people go through a series of voting rounds (like dot voting). In the first round, each person chooses their top n items. From there, subsequent rounds of voting are conducted to reduce the list further until the desired number of items remains. In these follow-up rounds, team members could be limited to one vote only or limited to a smaller number of votes.

How many votes should people get? Check out the ideas in the “How many dots to use” section in this article.

“W” stands for “Win” because the point here is that everyone wins. It’s difficult to find information on this but I’ll note a couple of the best references I could find. Please share if you see any others out there.

The way it works is stakeholders get together and first, privately rank items from their own perspective as well as consider which items they could give up. After that, the group comes together to share their rankings and negotiate.

A, E, I, O, U prioritization

writes about this loose framework of different types of criteria. This isn’t a scoring framework but something like this could probably be a good foundation for building a custom score for your own needs.

The acronym refers to Affordability, Effectiveness, Impact, Optionality, Uncertainty. Throughout his writeup, Russell suggests various measurements in these categories with visuals of how he might lay out the spreadsheet calculations.

GRIDS

offers up this 5-step framework for building product roadmaps. Read the full walkthrough at Product First. GRIDS stands for Gather and group like ideas, Review and Respond, Investigate, Decide, Share.

Ian McAllister

This old Quora response by

has been shared a lot in the product management community. Check out these 6 steps from the Chief Product Officer at Crowd Cow and former Director at Amazon.

Mariano Capezzani 4 Step

has developed a 4-step framework that starts with the critical first step of “Know the context.” Check out this article from Product School with the rundown.

Ruthless

This post by

is definitely worth a read. Brandon separates the approach between prioritization between projects vs. prioritization within a project. The framework(s) call out some interesting considerations like the importance of constraints and building dependable systems for prioritization within a project. Check out the article at The Black Box of Product Management.

KJ Technique

The KJ Technique is hard to track back to the origin, but apparently, it has been around for some time.

outlined the process well in this article. Starting from a single question, a group can brainstorm, group similar items, create themes, and rank the items and the themes. This is a great way to get alignment with a large group.

Prosono’s Priority to Action Framework

Published in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the framework from Prosono places emphasis on acting quickly when there is a clear problem. The process starts with a meeting set up where listening is crucial, then ends with action items being defined. Check out the article on Medium.

GEM model

Gibson Biddle writes about this metrics framework he used for prioritization at Netflix. GEM stands for Growth, Engagement, and Monetization, although Biddle doesn't prescribe any specific formula. His team targeted a metric in each of the 3 different categories then rank projects accordingly.

Ranallo’s 100

In a Medium post,

outlines a perfect example of how several frameworks can work together. After understanding the business goals, Anthony organizes themes into the four Eisenhower categories. This PM determines the value and combines the value with the Eisenhower importance/urgency category.

Kareem Mayan

emphasizes listening to customer feedback and understanding business goals clearly and early on. This is the core of Kareem’s 5-step process that is a detailed step-by-step guide at The Startup.

A prioritization framework is a broad term for any kind of structured technique or method to processes a list of items in a way that identifies which items are most important and which are least important.

What are prioritization techniques?

There are many different types of prioritization techniques. At a high level, prioritization techniques are processes or methods that enable someone to identify the most essential work items so that tradeoff decisions can be made in a way that aligns with business goals.

What are prioritization techniques in agile?

Agile prioritization techniques are any methods used to identify the most important items for informing a roadmap in an agile work environment, where teams acknowledge uncertainties and unavoidable inaccuracies while remaining determined to make informed, data-guided decisions.

Is prioritization an important skill?

Prioritization is one of the most important skills and one of the hardest skills for product managers. The prioritization process can be made easier, however, by having a clear vision and/or objectives for the business and developing a strong framework with stakeholder input.

How do you prioritize a list?

There are well over 100 documented methods for prioritizing a list of backlog features, requirements, or projects. Some of the most common techniques are RICE, MoSCoW, Impact vs Effort, but the best technique will vary by team depending on the goals and market.

What are the most commonly use prioritization techniques?

The most commonly used prioritization techniques are RICE scoring, ICE, MoSCoW, and Impact vs Effort. These methods may be missing some important criteria, however, depending on the goals of the team. For example, value from the customer’s perspective, strategic alignment, and confidence or evidence level.

Who prioritizes the backlog?

Usually, the product manager or product owner is really the one owning the backlog and product roadmap. This should not be done in isolation, however. There should be a close relationship with internal partners, customers, engineers, user experience designers, and analysts.

What’s a backlog?

A backlog is any list of things that are set aside and designated to come next — whatever that means in the particular environment. The backlog should be kept relatively short and should be kept up to date. A common mistake is that backlogs can become overrun with outdated or poorly thought-out ideas.

Who creates the backlog?

The product owner or product manager usually creates the backlog of work but works closely with partners in other teams to ensure it is the most relevant work, the most impactful, and that it is up to date.

What are the three prioritization methods?

There are well over 100 methods that have been used by product managers to rank features, projects, bugs, or brainstormed ideas. There are 2 or 3 that are discussed the most and these are MoSCoW, RICE, and Kano. This doesn’t mean these are the best methods, however. They are missing key criteria such as user value (vs business value), level of evidence, and alignment with business goals.

Got one to add or any feedback? Let me know!

You may also like these other frameworks posts: