Prioritization using IDEAS
- Steve Johnson
- Jan 26, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 13
Prioritization is a critical skill for product management
Prioritization is a critical skill used for many of the items in your product playbook. The basic tenet of prioritization is to make a list of all the things you want to accomplish and order the list based on value—that is, value to us and value to our customers. We don’t want the product team cherry-picking the list for easy stuff or fun stuff. We always want them working on the most important thing. And we don’t want product managers and product owners just guessing; we want to know that this is more important than that. It’d be ideal if we could use hard facts, like the results of a survey or perhaps the “jelly beans and fishbowl” approach. But absent hard facts, we ought to be able to use our judgment and a simple prioritization scheme.
In this approach, we use a numeric ranking to compare a number of ideas, where the goal is to achieve the highest number. Imagine the team discussions you can have to determine which idea has more value or importance. And the discussions matter; leverage the wisdom and experience of your team.
It doesn’t pretend to give you an exact score. But it gives you the structure to have the right conversation—across roles, not in silos.
Use IDEAS to create a numerical score for each major item
Terms
Impact of the Problem. How significantly does the problem affect your customers’ business operations, outcomes, or success? This is from the customer's perspective: does this problem slow them down, cost them money, damage their reputation, or put their own goals at risk?
Dissatisfaction. How unhappy or frustrated are customers with the current workaround, solution, or lack thereof? This helps you gauge urgency: mild irritation? Or actively looking for alternatives?
Evidence. How widespread or well-documented the problem is. Score high when you have real data: multiple customers reporting the issue, usage data, or patterns across segments. A score of zero means you’re running on opinion, not evidence.
Advantage to us. The benefit to your business if you solve this problem. This includes revenue potential, cost reduction, strategic positioning, or leverage for future capabilities. It’s the business case behind the idea.
Strategic Alignment. How well does the idea align with your current or future strategic priorities? High scores mean it directly supports long-term goals, target markets, or differentiators—even if the short-term impact is modest.
Finally, Effort to deliver estimates the resources necessary to successfully deliver this solution to customers across all teams, including design, development, marketing, sales, and support.
You can use a simple rating scheme with low, medium, and high, 1 through 5, or use a Fibonacci sequence.
You can use IDEAS with roadmap items, products, features, epics, and stories. For that matter, you can use it for promotional items as part of an agile marketing plan. Are you grooming your backlog by shuffling? Or are you using a quick, objective system?
Whether rating a competitor, a feature, or a product idea, objective decisions beat subjective ones every time.
Want to try it? Download the free spreadsheet now.
See also Rich Mironov's article Prioritization Beyond Algorithms for putting this approach into the context of an overall backlog.
This is one of the many modern methods taught in the Fundamentals of Managing Products series available from Product Growth Leaders. Learn more here.
