Agile prioritization techniques are some of the key strategies to ensure you’re optimizing project efficiency. I’ve used these prioritization techniques in countless software development projects throughout my 15-year career. You’ll learn how to accurately prioritize tasks, allocate resources, and ultimately deliver value more quickly.
These prioritization techniques will enable you to make data-driven choices and ensure your team is working on the highest impact items.
Understanding Agile Prioritization Techniques
Agile best practices for prioritization techniques are some of the best project management techniques to help teams determine which tasks or features they should work on next. As a person who has managed many software projects, I can tell you firsthand how important it is to prioritize effectively.
You might be wondering why prioritization is so critical in Agile. It’s really quite simple. Prioritizing ensures you’re working on the most valuable items. This, in turn, maximizes the impact of your project and keeps stakeholders satisfied.
Prioritizing effectively also has several other benefits. It optimizes resource allocation, minimizes waste, and boosts overall team productivity. You’ll deliver value more quickly, and you’ll be more agile in responding to changing market demand.
Unfortunately, prioritizing in Agile isn’t always easy. Some common challenges you might face include conflicting stakeholder priorities, unclear value of specific requirements, and difficulty of quantifying value. When you can’t prioritize effectively, you create inefficient processes and misaligned team goals.
The good news is there are various Agile prioritization techniques to help you overcome these challenges. Each technique has its own strengths and works best in specific situations. Let’s take a look at a few of the most effective ones.
MoSCoW Method for Agile Prioritization
The MoSCoW method is a simple prioritization framework that I’ve used in various projects. It groups items into four categories:
- Must have: Essential features that the project cannot succeed without
- Should have: Important, although not critical for the initial release
- Could have: Nice to have features that would enhance the user experience
Won’t have: Features not slated for the current release
Here’s how you can use the MoSCoW method:
- List all features or requirements.
- Assign each to a category.
- Review with stakeholders and make adjustments.
- Start by building ‘Must haves.’
MoSCoW’s simplicity is its primary benefit. It’s easy for anyone to understand and can be communicated to cross-functional teams. It’s great for making rapid decisions and quickly identifying essential requirements.
However, MoSCoW is limited because it doesn’t allow more granular prioritization within a category. It can also be difficult to manage the ‘Must haves’ category, as it tends to grow over time.
For example, I applied the MoSCoW method to a customer relationship management system. We considered login and contact management as ‘Must haves,’ while email integration was a ‘Should have’ and social media integration was a ‘Could have.’
Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) Technique
WSJF is a more quantitative prioritization methodology that maximizes the job of economic value. It’s a great option for larger, more complex projects.
To use WSJF, you simply calculate the Cost of Delay (CoD) per job and then divide it by the job size. Here’s how:
- Estimate the Cost of Delay (CoD) of each job.
- Determine the job size (usually in story points).
- Calculate WSJF = CoD ÷ Job Size.
- Prioritize jobs by their WSJF score.
The primary benefit of WSJF is that it ensures you’re always working on the job with the most economic value. This can have a significant impact on the ROI of a project.
The downside of WSJF is that estimating CoD requires more effort, particularly for less tangible benefits. Additionally, it requires more effort to train your team on this methodology.
I’ve personally found WSJF to be effective when prioritizing features for product development. It ensures you prioritize both quick wins and higher-value jobs.
Kano Model for Feature Prioritization
The Kano Model, developed by Professor Noriaki Kano, organizes features into five buckets:
- Must be: Features customers simply expect
- Performance: More of a feature is better
- Attractive: Features customers don’t expect, but that delight them
- Indifferent: Features customers don’t care about
- Reverse: Features that might detract from satisfaction
To use the Kano Model:
- Brainstorm potential features
- Develop a Kano questionnaire
- Survey customers
- Analyze the data to put features into each bucket
- Prioritize features by bucket
The Kano Model is excellent at gauging customer satisfaction. It forces you to prioritize only the features that will truly make customers happy. This can result in higher customer retention and a more successful product.
However, conducting Kano surveys is a bit time-consuming. Additionally, the data may change over time as customer expectations change.
I’ve personally used the Kano Model to build a mobile app. We discovered that offline functionality fell into the “Must be” bucket, while social sharing fell into the “Attractive” bucket.
Value vs Complexity Matrix
The Value vs Complexity Matrix is a simple visual prioritization tool. It places items on a 2×2 grid based on their value and complexity. The quadrants include:
- High Value Low Complexity: Quick wins
- High Value High Complexity: Major projects
- Low Value Low Complexity: Fill-ins
- Low Value High Complexity: Time sinks
How to use the value vs complexity matrix:
- List all items you want to prioritize.
- Rate each item by value and complexity.
- Place each item in the matrix.
- Set priority by quadrant.
This matrix makes it easy to see effort vs. reward and is an excellent way to get a high-level view of your project landscape.
The value vs complexity matrix is very simple, which is why it is so powerful. It is simple to create and easy for others to understand, making it an excellent method for stakeholder communication.
However, it’s easy to make overly simplistic decisions using the value vs complexity matrix. It does not consider dependencies or strategic value other than the item’s immediate value.
I’ve personally found this matrix most helpful in sprint planning meetings to determine which stories to tackle first.
To further enhance your understanding of Agile prioritization techniques, you might want to explore agile estimation techniques. These techniques can complement your prioritization efforts and help you make more accurate project estimations.
Before We Go
Agile prioritization strategies are excellent strategies to ensure projects are set up for success. I’ve witnessed teams that lacked effective prioritization strategies, and it held them back. These strategies help you avoid low-value tasks, distill down to the essence of what you really need, and ensure effort is commensurate with the value delivered. If you adopt MoSCoW, WSJF, or another prioritization strategy, you’ll make more informed decisions, deliver more value, and ultimately generate better results. Just keep in mind that prioritization is not a one-time activity. It’s a recurring process, as you have to continuously reassess what’s most important as project requirements evolve.
