Prioritization Archives

You’re Not Just Solving User Problems

Frameworks and Tools, Prioritization, Product Discovery

I regularly ask product people how they choose what to develop. Today, an increasingly popular answer is “we focus on the most important user problems”, or its more modern cousin “we prioritize opportunities”. Underlying these answers is a classic model that asserts that product development has to start with mapping out and prioritizing customer problems, […]

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Your Customers Are Not Always Right

Prioritization, Product Discovery

When talking to product managers, company leaders, and customer-facing folk, a common belief surfaces: if enough customers (b2c), or an important customer (b2b) ask for something, then we should build it. This axiom is reflected in prioritization discussions as well as in many product management tools that rank ideas by “customer votes”. Customer feedback, whether it

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Why You’re Struggling to Prioritize

Prioritization

Idea prioritization exercises are often hard and unsatisfying. The discussions run long and the decisions feel suboptimal. Using numeric methods like ICE or RICE adds more process, but not necessarily more clarity, as the numbers feel “made up”. I’ve written in the past about how to make better use of ICE, but I have to

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ICE Scores – All You Need to Know

Frameworks and Tools, Prioritization

UPDATE: An expanded version of this article is available as a free eBook: ICE Prioritization Done Right ICE (Impact, Confidence, Ease) is a popular idea prioritization method that has lately been getting some bad press. Some people openly warn against it as the worst thing you can do to your product. In this article I’ll explain

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Enough With Must-Have Features

Anti-Patterns, Prioritization

Here’s a sentence that always fills me with dread: “We plan to adopt this new approach, just as soon as we launch these must-have features.” The must-have feature list (AKA catch-up features) has become my nemesis—it’s forever standing in the way of progress. Usually it’s a laundry list of things copied from leading competitors, from

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Idea Prioritization With ICE and The Confidence Meter

Frameworks and Tools, Prioritization, Product Discovery

How to use the confidence meter tool and iterative testing to make sure you invest in the right product ideas.

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Why The Impact Effort Prioritization Matrix Doesn’t Work

Anti-Patterns, Prioritization

The Impact/Effort matrix is a classic product managment tool, helping to prioritize product ideas. See why often it doesn’t work correctly and how to fix.

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