Software Development Better, Faster, Stronger with Feature Prioritization A guide to save time and align your stakeholders
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Contents A world without feature prioritization
1
What is feature prioritization?
2
4 reasons feature prioritization can boost your software project
3
Improving the team dynamic with feature prioritization
6
The alternative: A case of battling stakeholders
7
So you’ve decided feature prioritization is for you
8
Introducing a more scientific development method
9
Step-by-step feature prioritization
10
Reading your matrix weights
12
Scoring the feature list
13
Using the matrix
14
A world without feature prioritization Feature prioritization defined
A world without feature prioritization is a noisy, disorganized place fraught with frequent conversations around “value” and “timeline”. So frequent — in fact — that far less actually gets done. In this world, the stress barometer reads “off the charts.” Tempers flare and decisions are made with wanton abandon. Often the players with the loudest voice or most organizational pull win out — not the players with a rational understanding of relevance, business value and reasonable timelines. At the expense of what? Cohesive user flows. A hodge podge of features that feels more like a digital consignment shop than a well-thought out user experience.
Feature prioritization is the process of identifying business goals and weighting them to be used in scoring the priority of features being considered for development. Best used to align stakeholders balancing diverse departmental perspectives, feature prioritization helps teams to prioritize X feature over Y. A team may decide in-app messaging is more important than calendar functionality that syncs with Google if increasing communication with the target audience has been identified as a key business driver. Feature prioritization can also be used to inform the product release roadmap.
1
What is feature prioritization?
You don’t have to live in this world. (We certainly don’t.) A world WITH feature prioritization feels by comparison like a totally different universe. Frustration arising from fielding and balancing development requests from different departments is diminished. While at the same time, the business value derived from that development is amplified. How could this be? By identifying the business goals and assigning value-related development asks, it ensures all stakeholders understand the vision and rationale behind the priority assignments in the feature prioritization matrix.
2
4 reasons feature prioritization can boost your software project
From preserving your bottom line to increasing team cohesion, feature prioritization is the industry’s best kept strategy for smarter, more effective development.
3
1. Savings all around
2. A clear direction for all
Feature prioritization saves on time, frustration and wasted breath by aligning stakeholders around the “value� that can be gained from development early on. This understanding of value is then used to weight features being considered for development later in the process eliminating the need to rehash the conversation (read: argument) each time a new feature is proposed.
Prioritization, which can be translated into a product roadmap, provides sequential direction to your development team ensuring the features most critically needed are the features in progress, first. Clear direction for your development team cuts down on inefficiencies too — all but eliminating effort expended building the wrong features. Less inefficiencies mean greater potential product success overall. 4
3. Time is money Fewer inefficiencies mean fewer resources wasted. Enough said.
4. Everyone approaches timelines and deliverables with eyes wide open Feature prioritization is an integral component to determine medium and long range planning — the app or platform additions that can be expected this week, this month and on.
5
Improving the team dynamic with feature prioritization
What makes developing these ventures so much more effective than the typical software project coordinated and run within a company?
Even beyond savings in time and money, feature prioritization preserves or improves on the existing team dynamic by facilitating collaborative not combative decision-making. Look for instance at the successful software ventures founded in dorm rooms across the country — from the most notable example Facebook to the microfinance network PoverUP, which coordinates providing small business loans to entrepreneurs worldwide.
The simple answer — many times the product owner and the development owner are one-in-the-same. Now when coordinating a larger scale development project, it’s usually not feasible for one person to perform both roles. When, the solution may impact such a wide swatch of the business it’s not realistic for one person to have acquired all the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. Though, feature prioritization brings us one step closer to this ideal.
6
The alternative: A case of battling stakeholders
Take for instance this scenario: Three stakeholders have gathered in a room to talk about the next development tasks in an app they’re creating. Stakeholder A values aesthetics. He wants the app to be as functionally beautiful as possible. Stakeholder B is concerned with lead generation. She is interested in exposing as many new users to the app as conceivable. Stakeholder B values retention. She would rather afford value to the app’s already large user base.
Each has a fundamentally opposed business goal. As many have seen, in cases where objectives are so different often all three suffer when developed since the effort it takes to realize each to its optimum potential in a limited timetable isn’t realistic. Without stakeholder alignment businesses risk not delivering on any of the stated goals. On top of this, when development is spread thin to accomplish three diverse goals, it can create the perception your team isn’t delivering. This added pressure isn’t good for moral. And it certainly isn’t good for revenue generation as a result of your completed or refurbished app. Avoid it with feature prioritization. 7
So you’ve decided feature prioritization is for you
Effective feature prioritization starts with a clear understanding of the business problem you intend to solve, the business goals and the intended users of your solution. Ask yourself these six clarifying questions before you embark on a feature prioritization exercise. (at right) Better yet — email them to the stakeholders who will be participating in your prioritization meeting. Ask them to come to the meeting with answers to the questions identified. Let that serve as a springboard for your discussion. During your meeting with stakeholders, seek to gain alignment in answering the question list.
Tailoring the question list Know that you may have others more appropriate to your specific business problem. Don’t be afraid to add your own or adapt the list. For example, asking, “What’s your user base?” might not be valid if you are creating firmware or an automatic backup capability — anything users don’t interact with directly.
• • • • • •
What is the criteria to assess the value? What are the business goals of the application? How are you going to monetize it? What is your user base? What are the size and demographics of the user base? What’s the business problem you’re trying to solve? 8
Introducing a more scientific development method
Consider feature prioritization the conductor of the development world helping to harmonize a choir of perspectives ranging from 5 to 100. How?
By discussing value first and features second, it creates a layer of abstraction between the features and the people suggesting them. It’s a collective approach that better separates personalities and feelings from the estimations of features and their importance. It all starts with discovery.
9
Step-by-step feature prioritization Compile your prospective feature set. We call this first step discovery, because that’s the goal. Comb through any existing user stories or requirement documents to source your list. This may involve conducting customer or stakeholder interviews for inspiration.
Determine business goals. What’s most important — adding reliability, increasing marketing share or something totally different that your committee decides? It’s important your stakeholders participate in identifying and are aligned around the relevant criteria that will comprise the framework to assess the relative value of each feature. Now is the time to put a stake in the ground. Poll your department heads. Whatever it takes to reach a clear vision. The business goals and corresponding criteria you identify will inform how you weight the business drivers in the next step.
10
Step-by-step feature prioritization Weight your assessment criteria. Here is where you assign a weight to the business goals you identified for further development of your mobile app. Let’s assume you’ve identified the following business goals:
A
Establish a stronger brand identity
B
Increase app adoption and usage
C
Gain users
D
Increase reliability of the app
Weighting the objectives spurs discussion between stakeholders about what’s most important for the business and the priority of satisfying each objective. By assigning relative weights to the criteria, you’re creating numeric priority you will then use to score and rank the goals.
11
Reading your matrix weights A
B
Establish a stronger brand identity
Increase app adoption and usage
10%
30%
C
D
Gain Users
Increase raliability of the app
20%
40%
Reading the weights According to the example above, increasing the reliability of the app is most important and establishing a stronger brand identity is least important.
Maneuvering the give-and-take Assigning weights to the criteria allows you to bypass difficult conversations around the features that should be developed first. Instead, it acknowledges that some goals have a higher priority. The actual order of the feature list should be guided by these weight assignments. Rather than, “What do you mean the brand identity of the app ISN’T IMPORTANT?” Conversations will sound something like this, “Yes gaining market share is important, I think it’s outranked slightly by our need to increase the existing reliability of the app.
12
Scoring the feature list
It’s decision time. The good news? All the stakeholders must do is rank each of the features on a scale from 1 to 5 for their success moving the dial on each of the business goals identified. We’ve found the following process works best: Project the matrix or view it on a large screen as a group. Work from the top of the matrix down. Identify a meeting leader. This person will serve as the speaker of sorts running the process. Though this person has no more deciding power than any other attendee. The power remains with the group. The leader will ask the individual who sponsored or identified the feature to propose a score. Then, the leader will open the discussion to the group. Discuss and adjust scores as a group until consensus is gained. The exercise can be slow initially. It’s a learned process that speeds as the group gains experience proposing a score and finding consensus.
Establishing a more defined color scheme might be ranked as follows:
A
Establish a stronger brand identity - 5
B
Increase app adoption and usage - 3
C
Gain users - 2
D
Increase reliability of the app - 1
Move through our complete feature list documenting the values in the matrix. The tool does the rest, ultimately enabling a more value-driven conversation compared to one mired in details and personal opinion.
13
Using the matrix
The feature prioritization process is best understood through the lens of an example. Imagine an artists’ cooperative has decided to create a mobile app to better communicate with and understand their membership along with the art lovers they serve in a large metropolitan area. Let’s call it New York. The cooperative has both studio and pop-up retail locations around the city. They host events at these locations and also hope their app can facilitate better connection between artists and art appreciators. Here is how to visualize their feature prioritization process.
Click here to access the matrix.
14
Step 1: Compile the prospective feature set After a discovery phase that included talking with members and past event attendees, stakeholders in the cooperative compile the following features for consideration.
Weight
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1st Business Driver
2nd Business Driver
3rd Business Driver
4th Business Driver
5th Business Driver
6th Business Driver
7th Business Driver
8th Business Driver
Total Score
Application Major Feature/Service
Theme
Feedback system for hosted events
Communication
0.00
Simple, beautiful UX
Brand identity
0.00
Adjust settings for color of font size
User experience
0.00
Built-in analytics
Consumer insight
0.00
Messaging from hosted events within the app
Communication
0.00
Accumulation of points for events attended within a predeterminated tier for system
Adoption
0.00
Option for Spanish translation
Customer experience
0.00
Push notifications
Customer experience
0.00
In-app scheduling to meet with artist in studio space
Communication
0.00
Social media integration with Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram Awareness
0.00
One touch contact
Communication
0.00
Integration with email system like My Emma or MailChimp
Communication
0.00
Coupons
Awareness
0.00
• Feedback system for events • Simple, beautiful UX • Adjust settings for color or font size • Built-in analytics • Messaging from event hosts within the app • Accumulation of points for events attended within a predetermined tier system • Push notifications • In-app scheduling to meet with artist in studio space • Social media integration with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram • One touch contact • Integration with email system like My Emma or MailChimp • In-app coupons 15
Step 2: Determine the business goals These are the tactics that will help drive new business for the cooperative, help them retain their existing membership or maintain attendance levels at events. The sample goals they chose listed in grey at the top of the chart are:
Weight
0
0
0
0
0
Increase Establish a engagement Disseminate Promote the strong brand with users information cooperative Gain users identity
0
0
0
0
6th Business Driver
7th Business Driver
8th Business Driver
Total Score
Application Major Feature/Service
Theme
Feedback system for hosted events
Communication
0.00
Simple, beautiful UX
Brand identity
0.00
Adjust settings for color of font size
User experience
0.00
Built-in analytics
Consumer insight
0.00
Messaging from hosted events within the app
Communication
0.00
Accumulation of points for events attended within a predeterminated tier for system
Adoption
0.00
Option for Spanish translation
Customer experience
0.00
Push notifications
Customer experience
0.00
In-app scheduling to meet with artist in studio space
Communication
0.00
Social media integration with Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram
Awareness
0.00
One touch contact
Communication
0.00
Integration with email system like My Emma or MailChimp
Communication
0.00
Coupons
Awareness
0.00
• Increase engagement with users • Disseminate information • Promote the cooperative • Gain users • Establish a strong brand identity
16
Step 3: Weight your assessment criteria Assign priority with a given weight to the business drivers listed horizontally across the top of your matrix. The higher you weight the priority of each driver, the more heavily it will assign importance to related features.
Weight
25 Increase engagement with users
40
15
Disseminate Promote the information cooperative
10
10
Gain users
Establish a strong brand identity
0 6th Business Driver
0
0
100
7th Business Driver
8th Business Driver
Total Score
Application Major Feature/Service
Theme
Feedback system for hosted events
Communication
0.00
Simple, beautiful UX
Brand identity
0.00
Adjust settings for color of font size
User experience
0.00
Built-in analytics
Consumer insight
0.00
Messaging from hosted events within the app
Communication
0.00
Accumulation of points for events attended within a predeterminated tier for system
Adoption
0.00
Option for Spanish translation
Customer experience
0.00
Push notifications
Customer experience
0.00
In-app scheduling to meet with artist in studio space
Communication
0.00
Social media integration with Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram
Awareness
0.00
One touch contact
Communication
0.00
Integration with email system like My Emma or MailChimp
Communication
0.00
Coupons
Awareness
0.00
17
Step 4: Reading the weights According to the weights assigned in the chart, business drivers for the cooperative in order of importance are: Disseminate information, increase engagement with users, promote the cooperative with gaining users and establishing a strong brand identity tied for least important. Weight
Application Major Feature/Service
Theme
25 Increase engagement with users
40
15
10
Disseminate Promote the information cooperative Gain users
10
0
0
0
100
Establish a strong brand identity
6th Business Driver
7th Business Driver
8th Business Driver
Total Score
Social media integration with Facebook, Linkedin, Awareness Twitter, Instagram
5
5
5
4
3
94.00
Integration with email system like My Emma or MailChimp
Communication
5
5
5
4
3
94.00
Messaging from hosted events within the app
Communication
5
5
4
2
2
85.00
Push notifications
Customer experience
5
5
4
2
2
85.00
Option for Spanish translation
Customer experience
5
5
2
4
1
81.00
Coupons
Awareness
4
4
5
4
2
79.00
Accumulation of points for events attended within a predeterminated tier for system
Adoption
5
3
4
2
2
69.00
In-app scheduling to meet with artist in studio space
Communication
4
3
2
2
1
56.00
One touch contact
Communication
4
3
2
2
1
56.00
Feedback system for hosted events
Communication
5
1
3
1
2
48.00
Simple, beautiful UX
Brand identity
3
1
2
2
5
43.00
Built-in analytics
Consumer insight
4
1
1
4
1
41.00
Adjust settings for color of font size
User experience
2
1
1
1
5
33.00
Step 5: Scoring the feature list Score each feature for its ability to positively impact each business driver on a scale of 1 to 5. Scores of 5 heavily influence the business driver. Scores of 1 have a minimal impact on the business driver. After this has been completed, reorder the list to see the features prioritized in order of importance.
18
Our take
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