Prioritization: The Science and The Art
I love coming up with ideas and I have so many ideas for my product.
But engineers have great ideas too!
Oh.. as one of the groups who are closest to users, designers have many ideas too!
I want to implement all of them!
Ugh, but I can’t.
Why?
Because not all ideas are good for the business.
Because not all ideas are solving a real user problem.
Because not all ideas are easy to implement within limited time and resources.
Because not all ideas are going to enable us to reach our product vision.
Because not all ideas can reach many people.
So what should I do?!
I have to say “No” (even to my ideas).
Saying no is very difficult for many people but as Product Managers, it is one of our core responsibility because our ultimate goal as PMs is to build the right product for the right user at the right time. This means that our product cannot have all the proposed features to bring meaningful value to users in a delightful way. Us as Product Managers have to say no to create successful products.
This is where prioritization comes into play. Prioritization for PMs is deciding what to say no and what to say yes.
As PMs, we need to ruthlessly prioritize all the feature requests and ideas that come from various sources and it is hard…
I will share with you how I approach prioritization and what works for me. Hopefully, you will be able to adapt it to your product as well. Every product is different so I highly encourage you to build your own framework by reading many resources along with this and understanding your product in an out. I have created this framework through:
- Building and scaling both HW and SW products in the past years and gaining experience
- Trying many frameworks that others have created and see if they work for me or not
- Thinking how would I prioritize everyday tasks if I did not have any experience or knowledge
If you have a technical background like me you probably are expecting a formula, an algorithm, or a mathematical model that will enable you to prioritize your ideas and features. As a Product Manager with a Computer Science background, I expected it too.
The truth is prioritization is one of the areas where science meets with art. In fact, I believe it is more art than science. You may think that you are not an artist but as Product Managers, we need to believe Albert Einstein when he said:
The greatest scientists are artists as well.
and approach the prioritization problem from both of these lenses.
The Art
User/Customer Feedback
When I was a child I had an “inventions” notebook where I’d write down my invention ideas and would draw how they would look. A hat with a propeller that flies you. A fork that automatically twirls when eating spaghetti. The sky was the limit… Throughout my life, I was always a creative person with crazy ideas. For me, the best products were the ones that sounded the coolest with super complex features. After I studied Computer Science, I thought if I became the best at CS concepts I can create amazing products. All I’d have to do is to build my idea, do some marketing for it et voilà I’d have a product that millions of people would want to use! Well… then I became a Product Manager and realized how wrong I was :)
Let’s briefly look at two known past initiatives by top tech companies in Silicon Valley that failed: Netflix “Friends” feature and Google +.
All these products have been built by some of the smartest engineers in the world, yet it was not enough to make them successful. Why? There were many different reasons behind these failures but one common reason that I want to point out is that they failed to fully understand their users/customers’ needs, pain points, and goals at that time. For instance, Netflix users thought it was too personal to share the movies they watched with their friends, so they did not use the feature. Google Plus failed because social communication was one-way, unlike other social media products that existed at that time. You could only follow a person and if that person does not follow you back he/she would not see any of the content you shared. Wait… Isn’t that what Instagram does too? Yes, but it turned out that people viewed Google Plus as a close-ties network while they did not think Instagram the same way. With Instagram, they did not care if the people they followed follow them back (eg. celebrities, influencers) but cared how many followers in total do they have. Us humans are complicated, aren’t we? :)
It turns out that it is easier to create a product that people want than it is to make people want your product.
All these failed initiatives taught me that innovation is not about cool ideas and it is about solving people’s problems. Therefore, when we think about prioritizing features and ideas for our product we need to start with our users. Our biggest aim as Product Managers to continuously deliver value to our users which we can only do by understanding their needs, motivations, goals, emotions, and pain points. To achieve this, you should continuously expose yourself to your users via:
Conducting User Interviews: To learn deeper about the experiences, needs, and goals of your users.
Conducting Usability Studies: To identify potential design concerns to be addressed to improve user satisfaction.
User Surveys: To have a greater reach (if you have thousands of millions of users you cannot meet with all of them in person).
Checking App Store Reviews (if your product is an app): To better understand what your users are saying about your product when you don’t ask them about it. — what they say behind your back
Reviewing Social Media: To better understand your branding and perception of your product.
Sales (If your company has a sales team): To understand the perspectives of the people who buy your product Eg. If your product is Slack your Sales team will have to convince decision-makers in other companies. They are not your end-user but their experience and opinions are also critical.
User/Customer Support: To see common issues reported.
Product Vision
The product vision is the dream of your product. The dream of a future that the company aims to create with its product. Every product manager should think through the long term vision of their product and decide whether a specific feature will enable the product to come closer to achieve the dream. Let’s briefly think about Facebook Reactions feature.
I am assuming that when Facebook came up with this feature idea, the first question business leaders were asked was “Does it fit with Facebook’s Vision and Mission”, which is “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” According to me, the answer is yes. Previously Facebook only had a “Like” button but it was not sufficient to express all the feelings that people have for various types of content that people post. Eg. People did not want to like a picture of someone who passed away. In this case, people chose not to interact with the “Like” button since liking was not able to convey how they felt — sadness. When FB introduced Reactions, people started to use the button more, started to engage with each other more, and eventually, it brought the world closer.
Business Goal
Depending on where your product is in its lifecycle you will have different business goals that you will need to consider when prioritizing your ideas.
If you are working at a startup that is building a new product or just launched a product, you are in the Introduction phase. At this phase, one of the biggest business goals you will have is to achieve Product-Market fit. Acquiring as many users as possible, and making a good impression so that existing users talk about your product to others and bring more users! If you receive monetization ideas from your stakeholders at this stage you know that you need to say “No”! However, if you are already working with a product that passed the Introduction phase then your biggest focus will no longer be acquiring new users. It can be increasing existing user engagement, increasing the retention of your users and monetization depending on the nature of your product. Setting your business goals will enable you to have a clear mind when it comes to deciding your priorities.
If we continue with the Facebook Reactions example, what do you think was the business goal of Facebook? We can make a guess. I believe it was to increase engagement and retention.
Engagement: Before Reactions, people did not want to interact with the Like button when that’s not the way they felt. If FB had Reactions, people would engage with other people’s content more. This would lead to an increase in time spent on Facebook per user and would eventually lead to more exposure to ads.
Retention: Content creator is notified with every “reaction” they receive. The more people react to his/her post, the more notifications the creator receives. Hence, comes back to the app more often. Again, this would lead to an increase in time spent on Facebook per user and would eventually lead to more exposure to ads.
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it — Peter Drucker
Like Peter Drucker said, each business goal you set should be measurable by appropriate metrics/KPIs that you set. It will help you to analyze and understand what is most critical for your overall business success at a given time.
You need to constantly review your business goals and adjust when necessary (eg. each quarter). These goals can be short term and long term. For long term goals, I recommend using OKRs (objectives and key results) — originally developed by Intel and adopted by many companies such as Google, Amazon, Linkedin. It is a framework that connects the team objectives to a company’s vision and mission and enables measuring team progress against them.
The Science
The science aspect of prioritization is much easier than art. It is well defined and there are many frameworks already exist in the industry. I will share the two that I use most often.
Reach
Reach is your estimation depending on your product. At this stage, you should estimate the number of people who would be impacted within a time frame if you were to implement a specific feature.
Effort & Ease of Implementation
If you are a Product Manager of a SW product then top three methods you can use to estimate the effort on a high level are:
- Story Points
- T-shirt sizing
- Time
Story Points: It is a method where you can compare the relative effort of each feature and idea by assigning points to them. In traditional story pointing, you are expected to use Fibonacci numbers (1,2,3,5,8,13,21 …), because if numbers were too close to one another it would be impossible to distinguish the effort estimates. You start by assigning 1 to the smallest item, 2 to the next smallest item, and continue until you assign numbers to all the features that you are aiming to prioritize. If you are a Computer Scientist, Fibonacci numbers probably were your best friend during your recursion classes, and you thought you would never have to see them again. Well, here we are!
T-shirt sizing: Small, medium, large! That’s it. You assign t-shirt size labels to each of your ideas to estimate the complexity of each on a high-level.
Time: This one is the one without any games :( where you simply assign hours, days, or weeks to each feature to indicate the time it would take to develop them. This is where you can rely on your engineers or project managers.
Final Thoughts
The guide will help you to facilitate your prioritization discussions with your team, and balance user, business, and resource needs. It will not give you the “right” answers since art is subjective. Instead, it will serve as a tool to bring structure to the way you think and will enable you to have consistency in your decision-making process during your prioritization process. Simply, think it as a magic method that you can use to say “No” to your stakeholders so that your product does not turn into an iced Ristretto, 10 shot, venti, with breve, 5 pump vanilla, 7 pump caramel, 4 Splenda, poured, not shaken Starbucks drink.
If you apply this guide, please let me know what you think about it by commenting below. Every day, I am learning new information, new points of view, new ideas that challenge the way I think so I assume as I grow in my career I will revise this guideline and update it along the way.
