The Best Product Management Method for You
As a product manager, you are responsible for the strategy, roadmap, and delivery of a product. You wear many hats and have to juggle a lot of balls. And one of the most important things you have to do is prioritize. But with so many different methods out there, it can be tough to know which one to use. Do you go with the Kano model? RICE? MoSCoW? Value vs effort? Importance vs satisfaction? I'll highlight each method and share my thoughts on which one is my favorite.
Kano Model
The Kano model is a tool that helps assess customer satisfaction with a product or feature. It does this by looking at three different types of customer requirements:
- Basic (must-have) requirements: These are necessary for the product or feature to be usable. For example, a web browser must be able to load web pages to be considered functional.
- Performance benefit requirements: These are features that add value to the product or feature and increase customer satisfaction. For example, a web browser might offer faster page loading times or more security features.
- Delighter requirements: These are features that are not essential for the product or feature to work but can greatly increase customer satisfaction. For example, a web browser might offer an immersive 3D browsing experience or support for virtual reality content.
RICE Scorecard
The RICE scorecard is a tool used by product managers to prioritize features based on their potential impact. It stands for Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort.
Here's how it works:
- Reach: This refers to how many users will be affected by the feature. A feature with a high reach will have a bigger impact than a feature with a low reach.
- Impact: This refers to how big of an impact the feature will have on users. A feature with high impact will have a bigger impact than a feature with low impact.
- Confidence: This refers to how confident you are that the feature will have the desired effect on users. A feature with high confidence is more likely to succeed than a feature with low confidence.
- Effort: This refers to how much effort it will take to develop and launch the feature. A feature with high effort will take longer and cost more money than a feature with low effort.
MoSCoW Method
The MoSCoW method is another tool used to prioritize features based on their potential impact. It stands for Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, Won't Have (or Would Like To Have). Here's how it works:
- Must-Have: These are features that are essential for the product or service to work and meet customer needs. Without them, the product or service would be unusable or unsellable.
- Should Have: These are features that would be nice to have but are not essential for the product or service to work and meet customer needs. They would improve the user experience but would not make or break the product/service.
- Could Have: These are features that would be nice to have but are not essential and may never get implemented due to time/resource constraints. They would improve the user experience but would not make or break the product/service if they were never implemented.
- Won't have: Features that will not be included in the final product, no matter what
Value vs Effort Matrix
The value vs effort matrix is another tool is helpful when prioritizing features based on their potential impact. The value of a given feature is determined by its ability to drive key business metrics such as revenue, engagement, conversion rate, etc., while its effort is determined by factors such as complexity, dependencies, etc.
Here's how it works:
- High Value / Low Effort = Must Do Now! Implement this ASAP as it will have a big impact on key business metrics with minimal effort required from your team
- High Value / High Effort = Worth Doing Later Implement this eventually as it will have a big impact on key business metrics but requires significant effort from your team - Low Value / Low Effort = Might As Well Do Now! Implement this eventually as it won't have much of an impact on key business metrics but requires minimal effort from your team -Low Value / High Effort = Not Worth Doing! Don't bother implementing this as it won't have much of an impact on key business metrics and requires significant effort from your team
Importance vs Satisfaction Matrix
The importance vs satisfaction matrix is great for prioritizing features based on their potential impact The importance of a given feature is determined by its ability to drive key business metrics such as revenue engagement conversion rate etc... while satisfaction is determined by consumer expectations and feedback gathered from research (surveys interviews etc...).
Here's how it works
- High Importance / Low Satisfaction = Must Do Now! Implement this ASAP as it's important to customers even though they're not satisfied with it yet
- High Importance / High Satisfaction = Worth Doing Later Implement this eventually as it's important to customers and they're already satisfied with it to the extent that it can be
- Low Importance / Low Satisfaction=Might As Well Do Now! Implement this eventually as it's not that important to customers and they're not satisfied with it anyway
- Low Importance / High Satisfaction=Not Worth Doing! Don't bother implementing this as it's not that important to customers and they're already satisfied with it to extent that the feature can be
Final thoughts
So there you have it! A brief overview of five different ways you can prioritize as a product manager. Which one you choose depends on your specific situation, but I think the value vs effort matrix is generally the most useful.
