How Product Managers

Decide What to Build7 Ways to Prioritize

Jim Semick

ProductCamp Silicon Valley – March 2015

So many

opportunities.

How do you decide

the right ones for

your product

roadmap?

Challenges

Prioritizing details, not the big picture

Priorities not tied to strategic goals

Priorities driven by loudest execs

Priorities determined by sales

prospects

Stakeholders question priorities

Before You Start

Think high level and categorize Be Strategic (growth, satisfaction, etc.)

Group smaller initiatives into themes

Bring customer evidence to the table

Understand customer value

Have rough cost/effort

7Prioritization Techniques

Value Versus Complexity

Complexity / Effort

Business

Value

High

High

Low

1 2

?

Value versus Complexity +

Weighted Scoring

Product Function

Customer

Delight

High

Fully Implemented

Low

Absent

Kano ModelCustomer Delight versus Product Function

Buy a Feature

1. List features

2. Assign a price

3. Hand out cash

4. Customers “buy” features

Gap Analysis /

Opportunity Analysis

Affinity Grouping

Photo credit: Doctordisruption.com

Story Mapping

Image credit: AgileBuddha.com

The technique you choose is not

as important as…

…the conversation about priorities

…agreement on the criteria

…your product management skills

…helping others arrive at the same

conclusion based on evidence

Getting Executive Buy-In

• Be transparent with execs about

your process - involve them

• Get agreement up front on

framework and goals

• Involve multiple stakeholders to get

different viewpoints on prioritization

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