Product prioritization is about taking the product “faster, higher, stronger”1 over a time horizon while allocating finite resources. Faster to market. Higher impact. Stronger through more differentiated value, lower risk, or lower costs. Resources are people and capital.
Here’s my Product Roadmap Prioritization and Allocation Template.
Step 1: Allocate and prioritize like an investment portfolio.
Reward and risk appetite inform an investment portfolio. The same goes for investment of product development effort across product opportunities, themes, or initiatives. 70-20-10 thumb rule2 (70% on core, 20% on adjacent, and 10% on exploratory) may work fine at the company level. But if you are working on exploratory initiatives, then the allocation may be like “big bets” in venture capital.
Prioritization goes together with allocation and sequencing when there aren’t enough resources to allocate across the opportunities. This is like someone building their safety cash cushion and retirement funds before investing in the public markets or a home.
Ultimately, the allocation’s purpose is to enable the product strategy to win in the market, and is aligned with OKRs.
Step 2: Allocate and prioritize projects within initiatives
Allocation, prioritization, and sequencing can be done at the next granular level: projects within initiatives. Initiatives are like themes or product opportunities, and take about a quarter. Projects are like epics and take about a month.
Step 3: Classify product features and projects based on outcomes
The purpose of a product is to drive customer outcomes and business outcomes. So, classify product features based on outcomes, and sequence them into a monthly/quarterly timeline.
Customer outcomes result from driving engagement or value, driving interest or awareness, satisfying customer requests and commits, and delighting customers.3,4
Business outcomes result from creating differentiated value, acquiring new customers, making customers sticky, closing gaps, reducing bugs and debt, reducing costs, and expanding TAM or use cases.
Effective product prioritization is a multifaceted process that involves strategic allocation of resources, careful classification of product features based on desired outcomes, and thoughtful sequencing of projects within initiatives.
PS: Check out more articles on building products. I write to pay it forward and to sharpen my thinking.
- Olympics motto, link
- Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, How Google Works
- Kano model, link
- Scott Belsky, The Messy Middle
Niran Kundapur 