Product prioritisation guidelines
- Ian Dillon
- Astrid Decrop
Prioritising product initiatives effectively ensures that resources are focused on projects that deliver maximum value, and contribute to the business unit and company achieving it’s strategic goals.
As a Product Manager or Designer at Moniepoint, you will work on initiatives intended to move a KPI:
from an existing level
to a goal level
in a certain timeframe
To help you to do this, we have created the product prioritisation & discovery guidelines.
Following these is intended to help you to be able to approach the problem in a way that will give you the greatest chance of success.
The following guidelines use the RICE methodology.
What is the guideline process for prioritisation?
State the KPI/s you wish to improve, and the goal
Gather and list all initiatives that might help achieve this
Score each initiative against criteria
Rank initiatives based on scores (including manual review and sense check)
Begin product development and execution based on the prioritised list
Use of these guidelines
These guidelines are based on best practices. Whilst we encourage you to use these guidelines, it is not mandatory and you should approach your task in the way you believe is most likely to achieve your goal.
How closely you follow the prioritisation guidelines will be analysed quarterly. If you chose to deviate from the guidelines and the results are poor, it is likely you will be asked to give your reasons for not following the guidelines, and to follow the guidelines in the future.
If deviating from the guidelines consistently achieves better results, we will learn from this and use the deviations to iterate and improve the guidelines.
Whilst the exact method you use for prioritisation is up to you, you must document your product discovery thoroughly in Confluence and Jira. This is non-optional. The end-to-end process for documenting in Confluence and Jira is described here.
Detailed steps
Step 1 - State the KPI/s you wish to improve, and the goal
The business KPI that the Product Manager or Business Leader wishes to affect with this initiative should be stated. The business KPI used should directly reflect the rationale for doing the project.
A goal should be set that will be measured by this KPI, including a timeline for making this change.
A guide for setting the KPI/s is below:
Business KPI | Level | Date | Goal level | Goal date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
These KPIs and goals should be agreed by the Business Leader and all team members.
Step 2 - Gather and list all initiatives
Objective | Compile a comprehensive list of all potential initiatives that could help achieve the goal. |
|---|---|
Actions | Collect initiatives: There should be a large number already in ‘new initiatives’ column in Jira. Gather ideas from various sources, including but not limited to:
Ensure inclusion of both short-term and long-term initiatives. |
Document details: For each initiative, provide a brief description, expected outcomes, and any supporting data or research. | |
Focus on quantity: At this stage, focus on quantity not quality of initiatives. This is to ensure that no valuable opportunities are overlooked. We will filter for quality in subsequent stages. |
Step 3 - Score each initiative against criteria (RICE)
Objective | Evaluate each initiative using standardised criteria to enable objective comparison and ensure alignment with strategic goals. |
|---|---|
Evaluation criteria | Reach (R): The number of users/customers affected within a specific time frame Impact (I): The degree of benefit each user/customer receives from the initiative Confidence (C): The level of certainty in the estimates of reach and impact Effort (E): The total amount of work required to complete the initiative |
Actions | Assign reach scores: Estimate the number of users/customers impacted over a set period (e.g., per month or quarter). Use actual data if at all possible. |
Assign impact scores: Rate the benefit per user on a standardised scale:
| |
Assign confidence scores: Rate your certainty about reach and impact estimates:
| |
Estimate effort: Approximate the total work required. Include all resources needed from discovery through to launch (engineering, design, QA, compliance, etc). | |
Score strategic alignment: Rate alignment with strategic goals on a scale:
|
Step 4 - Rank initiatives based on scores (including manual review and sense check)
Objective | Calculate priority scores, rank initiatives accordingly, and perform a manual review to ensure practicality and alignment with KPI/s and goal. |
|---|---|
Actions | Calculate priority scores: Use the enhanced RICE formula incorporating strategic alignment: Priority score = (Reach×Impact×Confidence) / Effort For each initiative, compute the priority score using the assigned values |
Rank initiatives: Sort the initiatives in descending order based on their priority scores. This initial ranking provides a data-driven hierarchy of initiatives. | |
Manual review & sense check | Review dependencies: Identify any initiatives that depend on the completion of others, and adjust the ranking to account for these dependencies. |
Assess external factors: Consider market trends, regulatory changes, or competitive pressures that might affect the priority. Modify rankings if certain initiatives have strategic urgency. |
Step 5 - Begin product development and execution based on the prioritised list
See product discovery guidelines.
Additional best practices
Maintain transparency. Keep the scoring criteria, assigned scores, and rationale accessible to all stakeholders. Transparency saves time as all stakeholders can review context for themselves, builds trust, and facilitates decision-making.
Ensure consistency. Apply the same evaluation criteria and scoring scales to all initiatives
Stay flexible. Be prepared to adjust priorities as new information emerges or circumstances change. Regularly revisit the prioritisation to keep it aligned with current goals and realities.
Document thoroughly. Keep detailed records of all evaluations, scores, and decisions. Documentation supports accountability and serves as a valuable reference. The end-to-end process for documenting in Confluence is described here.