Prioritisation
Why it matters
Doing the wrong work well still wastes the scarcest things a small team has: time, attention and money. Most teams do not fail from a lack of ideas. They drown in reasonable ones, because saying yes is easier in the moment than choosing. A yes to an average idea is a silent no to a better one that never got capacity.
How to apply it
- Agree the scoring criteria first, so debates are about numbers and not about who is loudest.
- Pull real data before scoring, such as conversion rates or support volume, so a proven problem beats a loud but unproven one.
- Score in a group where possible, because several views catch wishful thinking.
- Keep the ranked list visible, so ideas that miss the cut are seen to wait instead of being forgotten.
- Re-rank on a fixed rhythm, such as every cycle or quarter.
What it is
Every small team has more good ideas than hours. Prioritisation is the habit of scoring the options against the same criteria, putting them in order and saying no, or "not yet", to the rest.
Two common scoring methods are ICE and RICE. ICE scores each idea for impact, confidence and ease. RICE adds reach and uses effort instead of ease. Each factor gets a simple score, and the result puts ideas in order.
Say a team has four ideas for its website: a new pricing page, a blog redesign, a faster checkout and a new logo. Scored on a 1 to 10 scale against the same three questions, the faster checkout scores highest because analytics show many buyers dropping out there.
Common mistakes
- Treating the score as the decision. It is an input to a judgement.
- Scoring effort too optimistically.
- Never removing items, so the list grows until it is ignored.
