Project Management 101: Agile Prioritization Techniques

In Agile project management, prioritization is critical to ensure that the team focuses on delivering the most valuable features or user stories first. The very same techniques could be utilized at the enterprise and program levels. Agile prioritization techniques generally help teams and the whole organization make informed decisions.

A significant difference between traditional waterfall project management and Agile is that the former only sometimes gives a chance to prioritize tasks or items. In the waterfall environment, when one task is linked to another, you have little flexibility in what could be picked and chosen for the next steps. The agile methodology, in contrast, gives you more flexibility in prioritization of tasks when considering their risks, business value or other parameters.

What about the overall benefits of using prioritization in Agile project management?

1. Early value delivery to the customer. By focusing on the top features first, Agile teams can deliver a functional product (or Minimum Valuable Product MVP) early in the development process, providing value to the customer sooner.
2. The next point is resource optimization. This helps in efficient resource allocation by concentrating efforts on critical tasks.
3. To manage project scope. It aids in defining what must be included within the agreed-upon timeframe and what can be deferred to future iterations.
4. To maintain a well-organized product backlog. As priorities change or new features emerge, the Product Owner (PO) can quickly reassess and reprioritize the backlog items.
5. During sprint planning, the PO collaborates with the Developers to define and prioritize user stories. This ensures that the highest priority features are tackled first in the upcoming sprint.

Also, a couple of things should be taken into account. Remember that working in Agile means working with constantly changing requirements and emerging market dynamics. Thus, involve your stakeholders and do it regularly. This is the only way to ensure that your prioritized tasks or user stories are aligned with the customer's needs and business goals.

Even though the following methods apply to most Agile frameworks, most examples will use Scrum as the most popular Agile framework. How and when can prioritization methods be used?

Prioritization methods

MoSCoW Method: It stands for Must, Should, Could, and Won't

1. Must: The Must features that are critical and must be delivered in the current iteration.
2. Should: Important features that should be completed if possible but can be deferred if necessary.
3. Could: Desirable features would be nice if time and resources allow.
4. Won't: Features that are not planned for the current release.

Relative Weighting (WSJF - Weighted Shortest Job First)

WSJF is a technique that helps teams prioritize features by considering both business value and time-criticality. Think about low-hanging fruits that bring the most value to your business or a project. The formula for WSJF is:

WSJF = (Business Value + Time Criticality + Risk Reduction) / Job Size:

1. Business Value: This represents the perceived value or benefit of delivering the work item. It is usually determined by product owners, stakeholders, or business representatives based on factors such as market demand, strategic alignment, and potential revenue impact.
2. Time Criticality: This factor considers the urgency or time sensitivity of the work item. Items that need to be delivered sooner might have a higher time criticality factor. As mentioned earlier, being Agile means being adaptable to constantly changing conditions.
3. Risk Reduction: This component reflects the potential risk of not implementing the work item. High-risk items, such as compliance issues, security vulnerabilities, or potential business losses, might receive higher scores in this category.
4. Job Size refers to the estimated size or effort required to complete the work item. It could be expressed in story points, ideal days, or any other relevant unit of measure for your team's estimation process.

The higher the WSJF value, the higher the priority of the item. Teams can then compare and rank the work items based on their WSJF scores to determine how they should be addressed.

Kano Model

The Kano Model categorizes features into five types, each impacting customer satisfaction differently.

1. Must-Be Quality (Basic Needs): Must-be qualities are fundamental and essential features that customers expect as a minimum requirement. When implemented, they do not necessarily lead to high satisfaction, but their absence or failure can result in extreme dissatisfaction. Basically, customers take these features for granted. For example, imagine a smartphone that can't be used to make calls. By default, you expect this functionality, and the lack of it will be a deal-breaker.
2. One-Dimensional Quality (Performance Needs): One-dimensional qualities are directly related to customer satisfaction in a linear manner. The more features a product has, the higher the customer satisfaction. These are the features that customers consciously consider when comparing products and making purchasing decisions. In simple terms, it is the best bang for the buck. How much more RAM can you get buying a new laptop, or it's screen diagonal?
3. Attractive Quality (Delighters): These are unexpected features that can pleasantly surprise customers. While their absence does not cause dissatisfaction, their presence increases satisfaction and delight. A new generation GPS tracker in your phone that can be used by hikers or an infrared night mode for your smartphone camera.
4. Indifferent Quality: Indifferent qualities have little to no impact on customer satisfaction. Remember, gold plating in project management; this is what should be avoided at all costs. It could be different colors of a phone case and its bezel, not something people will carry about.
5. Reverse Quality (Dissatisfiers): Reverse qualities are features that, when present, lead to dissatisfaction. It could be a slow operating system or an inflated size of photos you take occupying extra space on a microSD.

Risk-Based Prioritization

This technique involves evaluating the risks associated with each feature or user story and prioritizing items that mitigate critical risks early in the project. It also promotes a risk-aware culture where the entire team takes responsibility for identifying and addressing potential challenges throughout the project's lifecycle.

When using this method, you should remember one of the fundamental agile principles: fail fast. The risk prioritization method in Agile involves the following steps:

1. Risk Identification: The first step is to identify potential risks that may arise during the project. This can be done through brainstorming sessions, risk workshops, retrospectives, and involving all relevant stakeholders and subject matter experts.
2. Risk Assessment: Once risks are identified, they must be assessed to understand their potential impact and probability of occurrence. Agile teams often use qualitative assessment techniques like High/Medium/Low or a numerical scale (e.g., 1-5) to rate the severity and likelihood of each risk.
3. Risk Analysis and Prioritization: Agile teams analyze the identified risks based on their assessment scores. The risks with the highest combination of impact and likelihood are prioritized, as they pose the most significant threats to the project's success.
4. Risk Mitigation Planning: For high-priority risks, the team creates risk mitigation plans to address and reduce the likelihood or impact of these risks. The plans typically include specific actions, responsibilities, and timelines for implementation.
5. Continuous Monitoring: Risk management is an iterative and ongoing process in Agile. Teams continuously monitor identified risks and the effectiveness of mitigation strategies. Regular risk review meetings, stand-ups, and retrospectives provide opportunities to reassess risks, adjust priorities, and update mitigation plans as needed.
6. Risk Communication: Transparent communication about identified risks and their prioritization is paramount in Agile project management. Stakeholders must be informed about potential risks and the team's management approach. It fosters collaboration and enables stakeholders to provide valuable insights and support.
7. Adaptation and Flexibility: Agile projects are known for their adaptive nature. As new risks emerge or existing ones change, the team should be ready to adjust their priorities and strategies accordingly.

Opportunity Scoring

Teams assign scores to each feature or user story based on their potential business value, customer impact, market opportunities, and alignment with strategic goals. Features with higher opportunity scores receive higher priority. It helps Agile teams identify and focus on the most valuable opportunities to maximize the return on investment (ROI) and deliver high-impact outcomes. Here's how this prioritization technique works:

1. Identify Opportunities: Identify the features, user stories, or project initiatives that must be prioritized. These opportunities represent potential enhancements, new features, or strategic initiatives that the team can work on. This step can use the same techniques as mentioned earlier for risk identification.
2. Define Scoring Criteria: Establish a set of criteria that will be used to evaluate each opportunity. The criteria should align with the project's strategic objectives and include business value, revenue potential, customer impact, market opportunity, alignment with company vision, and risk level.
3. Assign Scores: Rate or score each opportunity against the defined criteria. The scoring can be done using a numerical scale, relative comparison, or a combination of both.
4. Weighting (Optional): To further fine-tune the prioritization, you may assign weights to the criteria based on their relative importance. For example, if customer impact is a critical factor for your project, you can give it more weight in the scoring process.
5. Calculate Opportunity Scores: Once you have scored each opportunity and, if applicable, applied weights, calculate an overall opportunity score for each item.
6. Ranking and Prioritization: Arrange the opportunities in descending order of their opportunity scores. The items with the highest scores are prioritized and should be addressed first.
7. Review and Refinement: Continuously update the opportunity scores as new information becomes available or project priorities change.

The Opportunity Scoring technique allows Agile teams to make informed decisions about which opportunities to pursue, ensuring that the most valuable and strategic initiatives are given priority. It promotes a data-driven approach to decision-making and helps align the team's efforts with the overall business objectives.

Dot Voting

In this simple technique, team members are given a limited number of votes (dots) to distribute among the features or user stories they believe should be prioritized. The items with the most votes get higher priority.

1. Generate a List of Items: Create a list of items that must be prioritized. These could be user stories, features, tasks, ideas, or any other items that require the team's attention and prioritization. As you can see, this part for all prioritization methods is the same.
2. Allocate a Limited Number of Votes: Each team member is given a specific number of dots or votes (usually a small number, like 3-5 dots) to distribute among the items on the list. The number of votes ensures that team members must make deliberate choices and cannot vote for every item.
3. Voting Process: Team members privately and independently place their dots on the items they believe should be prioritized the most. They can put all their dots on a single item or distribute them among multiple items based on their preferences.
4. Tally the Votes: Once all team members have placed their dots, tally the votes for each item. Count the number of dots each item has received to determine its total votes.
5. Prioritization: Arrange the items in descending order based on the number of votes they received. The items with the highest number of votes are considered the top priorities and should be addressed first.
6. Discuss and Refine: After prioritizing the items, discussing the results with the team is essential. If there are any significant differences in votes or if certain items are closely ranked, the team can discuss to understand the reasons behind the choices and refine the prioritization further.

Dot voting is a quick and democratic way to involve team members in prioritization. It leverages the team's collective wisdom and ensures that multiple perspectives are considered. Limiting the number of votes each team member can use encourages thoughtful decision-making and prevents the domination of a few strong voices.

This technique is advantageous when the team needs to prioritize a list of items quickly without getting bogged down in lengthy discussions. It is also effective for remote or distributed teams, who can use virtual tools to conduct the dot voting process online.

Buy a Feature

This collaborative technique involves allocating a budget to team members who can "buy" features or user stories they believe should be prioritized. A reminder for you, please use Monopoly money and not the real one!

The process revolves around a simulated "auction" where stakeholders are provided with a fixed budget (virtual currency) to "buy" the features they believe should be prioritized. They are listed on a board, each with its respective cost (development effort, time, or resources). Stakeholders then strategically allocate their budget to "purchase" the most valuable features for the project's success.

Benefits of "Buy a Feature":

1. Engagement and Collaboration: The technique fosters collaboration and engagement among stakeholders.
2. Customer-Centric Prioritization: Involving end-users and customers in decision-making ensures that the features align closely with their needs and preferences. As a result, the final product is more likely to meet user expectations and drive higher satisfaction levels.
3. Transparency and Shared Understanding: "Buy a Feature" encourages open discussions and transparency. Participants can articulate their reasons for prioritizing specific features, leading to a shared understanding of project goals and constraints.
4. Resource Allocation Optimization: As stakeholders have limited virtual currency, they must carefully assess the value of each feature before investing. This process ensures that resources are allocated optimally to the most critical and high-impact features. So this method is similar to the Dot-voting.
5. Prioritization Clarity: The technique creates a clear visual representation of feature priorities based on stakeholder choices. This clarity facilitates the decision-making process for the project team and helps identify areas that require immediate attention.
6. Impact vs. Effort Matrix: Features or user stories are assessed based on their impact on customers and the effort required for implementation. Items that offer high impact with relatively low effort are given higher priority. Always remember about low-hanging fruits!
7. Theme Screening: Agile teams use this technique to evaluate features or user stories against predefined themes or strategic initiatives. Items that align closely with the current theme receive higher priority.
8. Feedback and Iteration: As always, remember that prioritization is not a one-time event. Agile teams frequently seek input from stakeholders, end-users, and customers and iteratively adjust priorities based on the feedback received.

Summary

Remember that the choice of prioritization technique may vary depending on the project context, team preferences, and the nature of the work being done. The key is to involve the team, stakeholders, and customers in the prioritization process to ensure that the most valuable work is delivered early and continuously throughout the project. And finally, there is no right or wrong approach. It all depends on your organization and habits, and if one technique does not work well, feel free to try another.