Catalog
method#Product#Delivery#Governance

Prioritization Technique

Structured approaches to evaluate and order requirements, features, or tasks using defined criteria to focus resources effectively.

A prioritization technique is a structured approach to evaluate and order requirements, features, or tasks using explicit criteria.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Organizational
  • Organizational
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Product backlog in Jira or similar toolsRoadmapping tools (e.g., Aha!, Productboard)Context data from analytics dashboards

Principles & goals

Transparency about criteria and weightsInclusion of relevant stakeholdersEvidence-based evaluation over gut feeling
Discovery
Enterprise, Domain, Team

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Wrong criteria selection leads to suboptimal priorities
  • Dominance of individual stakeholders skews prioritization
  • Excessive formalization hinders agility
  • Keep criteria transparent and simple
  • Regularly review and adjust priorities
  • Engage stakeholders early and manage expectations

I/O & resources

  • Requirement list or backlog
  • Estimates (effort/complexity)
  • Business goals and KPIs
  • Prioritized ordering of items
  • Decision log with criteria
  • Action plan for implementation

Description

A prioritization technique is a structured approach to evaluate and order requirements, features, or tasks using explicit criteria. It helps focus scarce resources and makes decision trade-offs transparent. Common methods include MoSCoW, Kano, and Weighted Shortest Job First. Context and stakeholder preferences guide method selection.

✔

  • Better focus of scarce resources
  • Traceable decision rationale
  • Higher stakeholder alignment and priority clarity

✖

  • Requires time and facilitation for correct application
  • Subjective weights can skew results
  • Not every technique fits every context

  • Time-to-Market

    Time from idea to delivery of a prioritized feature.

  • Throughput of prioritized items

    Number of implemented prioritized items per period.

  • Stakeholder satisfaction with prioritization

    Qualitative measure of stakeholder satisfaction after prioritization decisions.

MoSCoW for MVP definition

A product team used MoSCoW to determine essential features for an MVP and prevent scope creep.

Weighted Shortest Job First in portfolio planning

A delivery office prioritized initiatives using WSJF to maximize economic benefit per development time.

Kano analysis for feature roadmap

Discovery results were categorized with Kano to plan delight features into later releases deliberately.

1

Define goals and evaluation criteria

2

Identify stakeholders and facilitator

3

Score, weight, and aggregate items

4

Document and communicate results

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Poorly documented prioritization decisions
  • Deferring refactors in favor of short-term features
  • Lack of automation to measure impact
decision inertiaunclear requirementsmissing effort estimates
  • Using MoSCoW without consensus leads to misunderstandings
  • Weights ignore long-term strategy in favor of short-term gains
  • Decisions based solely on gut feeling
  • Overly optimistic effort estimates distort priorities
  • Stakeholder politics instead of objective criteria
  • Ignoring technical dependencies when prioritizing
Facilitation and moderation skillsBasic understanding of business and product goalsAbility to estimate effort and risk
Business valueRisk and compliance requirementsTechnical feasibility and maintainability
  • • Limited budget
  • • Limited technical capacity
  • • Regulatory constraints