Product prioritisation is one of those parts of product persons life which is part science and part art. As for many things in Product – the answer to the what prioritisation framework do you use – is “it depends”
You’ll find a lot of literature on the range of product prioritisation frameworks.
Product Prioritisation Framework – RICE
To restate the original framework, referring to (R)ICE framework – Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort (or Estimate).
Reach refers to the number of users or customers who will be affected by the change. A feature with a high reach score will have a larger impact on your product and business.
Impact refers to the significance of the change for your users or customers. A feature with a high impact score will have a greater impact on your product and business.
Confidence refers to the level of certainty that the change will be successful and have the desired impact. A feature with a high confidence score is more likely to be successful and have a positive impact.
Effort is the fourth and final factor in the RICE model. This factor assesses the time and resources required to complete the project. The Effort score is typically determined by a project manager or developer based on their knowledge of the IT infrastructure and team size.
Adapting RICE to TRICE
While working at Favrit, I’ve adapted this to suite our needs. Following are the two main changes I am working with
Adapting Impact Score to the product prioritisation
I’ve looked at the impact for a new customer vs. for an existing customers separately. Giving it a 60/40 weight respectively seems appropriate for our case.
Adding (T)-iming to the RICE Score
I’ve added a element of Timing in the RICE score, making it now the TRICE score. I rated the timing as Near, Far, Further, Uncertain in increasing order timing relevance.
The intention was to capture elements like B2B Sales cycle, buying or implementation season, regulations, etc. For example, in our industry we know that outdoor events and festivals in Norway would happen in the warmer part of the year. This helped prioritise the initiatives that were needed for the implementation of festivals in to the development pipeline.
This could also help cater to that one contractual obligation we’ve signed up. Beware though that this does not become a means to sign deals and push through to product.
What’s next
Iterate with TRICE. Periodically when revisiting the set of priorities, as with the confidence score getting updated after every learning experience, the timing parameter will also influence the overall prioritisation score.