✴️How to Prioritize Product backlog?

 

Prioritization of product backlog is one of my favorite questions in the interview round. Most of the candidates fail to answer this question properly. Either the answer is partially correct, or they are never involved in the prioritization work, or they use some knowledge quickly mugged from internet. Some of the candidates used MOSCOW technique, but they are not very sure how to apply that. I get answers like the most important features needs to implement first. But when I respond back if all the features are very important and have high business value, how do you prefer to sort them. The candidates have no clue how to answer then. Please note that if you are appearing for business analyst or product manager interview, you can definitely expect this question from the interviewer. There are several techniques to prioritize, but it is not suggested to use only one criterion for overall prioritization.

So, what are the different criteria available in the scenario and which ones are the top criteria.

✅ Government regulation: I believe, in any market to operate - it is very important to know legal rules for launching or operating a product. If government makes any rule, you need to take that on priority and implement that. Sometimes the cost is high implementing the legal aspects in your product, but you don't have any alternative option.

✅ Previous product issues or bugs: If your product has any past issues or bugs, it is very important that you check on them. What is the point of implementing new feature on top of your existing feature if the current product has lot of issues. You need to solve the burning issues for existing customers. Else you will lose your existing customer base. Accept the issues present in the bug, taken them as requirement and solve it.

Now let's come to other important filter criteria.

✅ Business Benefit: You need to calculate business value of all the features. This is one of the top parameters, management is interested.

✅ Cost involved: Calculation of cost or implementation cost. Implementation cost involve development cost, technology involved, external vendor involved, external consultant charge etc.

✅ Customer expectation: Main objective your product is to solve customer problem. Now if customer is expecting something or it’s a new trend or it will give you a competitive advantage against your competitor, definitely that requirement is a good one. Customer centric requirements are always put at the top end.

✅ Time to implement: How much time it will take to implement the feature. If the time to market is low and impact is high, the requirement is preferred over others. But if time to implement is high, may be we need to look into other factors also to consider it to implement.

✅ Resource Availability: If you don't have enough resource, how you can take a big requirement. If the resources don't have required skillset or technical knowledge, also it is difficult to get required resource - you might consider the other requirements.

✅ Technical Feasibility: You need to check whether your company has the technical feasibility to implement the features.

✅ Budget constraint: If project sponsors reject the funding, you won’t be able to implement any high-cost feature. So budget is a important factor here.

✅ Any other criteria: There might be other criteria like improve intangible factors like brand value, good will etc.

👉 So, when you are prioritizing, consider all the factor while making a final list. Hope this article was helpful. If you are aware of any other criteria, please don't forget to comment. Happy Learning :)