Prioritization is a perennial challenge when building a product roadmap. You need to take the time to prioritize well. If you’ve put the effort into brainstorming new ideas, finding opportunities for improvement, and collecting feedback, you’ll have a solid product roadmap full of good ideas. But the order in which you tackle those ideas deserves just as much thought
Prioritization is a difficult problem
It’s satisfying to work on pet ideas you would use yourself, instead of projects with broad reach.
- Focus on clever ideas, not projects that directly impact your goals. It’s exciting to dive into new ideas, rather than projects that you’re already confident about.
- It’s easy to discount the additional effort required for one project over another.
Impact
To focus on projects that move the needle on your goal, estimate the impact on an individual person
- Choose from a multiple-choice scale: 3 for “massive impact”, 2 for “high”, 1 for “medium”, 0.5 for “low”, and finally 0.25 for “minimal”
Confidence
To curb enthusiasm for exciting but ill-defined ideas, factor in your level of confidence about your estimates
Project 1: This will take about a week of planning, 1-2 weeks of design, and 2-4 weeks of engineering time. I’ll give it an effort score of 2 person-months.
Project 2: This project will take several weeks of planning and a significant amount of design time, and at least two months of one engineer’s time.
Reach
To avoid bias towards features you’d use yourself, estimate how many people each project will affect within a given period.
How is a RICE score calculated?
Four factors: Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort and Effort
- Once you’ve estimated these factors, combine them into a single score so you can compare projects at a glance
- The resulting score measures “total impact per time worked” – exactly what we’d like to maximize
Project 1: 500 customers reach this point in the signup funnel each month, and 30% choose this option
The reach is 500 × 30% × 3 = 450 customers per quarter.
Project 1: For each customer who sees it, this will have a huge impact. The impact score is 3.
Project 2: This will have an impact for each customer, but lesser for each individual customer. Impact score is 1.9.
- Project 3: This is somewhere in-between, with an impact score of 2.0.
How to Use RICE Scores Effectively
RICE scores shouldn’t be used as a hard and fast rule.
- Sometimes you might want or need to work on projects “out of order”.
- A scoring system in place, you can clearly identify when you’re making these trade-offs.
RICE score: a simple tool for prioritization
A good prioritization framework can help you consider each factor about a project idea with clear-eyed discipline and combine those factors in a rigorous, consistent way.
- Using a scoring system in product management
- Four factors and a method for combining them
Project 1: We have quantitative metrics for reach, user research for impact, and an engineering estimate for effort
This project gets a 100% confidence score.
- Project 2: I have data to support the reach and effort, but I’m unsure about the impact.
- The reach and impact may be lower than estimated, and the effort may be higher.
Effort
To move quickly and have impact with the least amount of effort, estimate the total amount of time a project will require from all members of your team
